Star Wars: Legacy of the Sith
by TheWolfofthePalatine
Summary: A young girl trying to make ends meet is chased out of her family home by Hutt crimelords, and forced to start a new life across the galaxy. In time, her aptitude for the Force becomes apparent and she sets off to train and understand the Dark Side under the tutelage of a Sith Lord who one day dreams of revenge against the Jedi Order.
1. Chapter 1

**Foreword**

Having hit sort of a writer's block on my other Star Wars fanfic on this site, Heart of Darkness, I've decided to take a break (I've left it at a perfectly organic interlude, in my opinion) and work on the idea for another character I've been working on for some time. More than that, I wanted the chance to properly explore, not a planet with a history that I invented myself for a Star Wars fanfic, but the actual living, breathing history of the Sith Lords that already exists within the Star Wars universe. I'm working on one story told from the perspective of a Jedi Knight (one who, admittedly, loses his way to the Dark Side of the Force, but, a Jedi Knight nonetheless) - I want, also, to work on a story from the perspective of a Dark Lord of the Sith.

As with Heart of Darkness, this is an original story featuring original characters which takes place within the canon of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. This particular story is set roughly 3,700 years before the birth of Luke Skywalker, and roughly 200 years after Darth Malak was betrayed and defeated by his master, Revan, and the Sith Triumvirate of Darth Nihilus, Darth Sion and Darth Traya was defeated by Jedi Knight Meetra Surik.

As far as the Republic and Jedi order are concerned, the Sith threat is no more...

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**CHAPTER ONE**

"**Nar Shadaa"**

Talia Sa'Ran was wet, sticky, and dirty.

Had anybody stepped forth to offer her that description, she might have rolled her eyes, laughed at them and explained that there was nothing more she'd rather be. Unfortunately, in this particular example, neither description was quite as welcoming as it may otherwise have sounded. She was certainly not alone.

The markets of Lower Zanshi District were teeming with the crush of bodies; human, near-human and downright alien. The heat vomiting up from the sewer grates in great plumes of steam from the floor was amplified by the heat from the throng, and flavoured by the natural stench of hundreds of slummies who barely had access to the most rudimentary wash facilities grinding their sweaty bodies against one another. Combined with the low lighting of the underground market and the roar of voices as various merchants struggled to be heard above the din of the mob, and it was an experience like no other in the entire known galaxy.

Here, however, Talia felt at home, as she had since she was a little gutter rat, darting in between the folds of pedestrians' robes, lightening a satchel here or cutting a purse string there to bring home something of value and hope to impress her dad. She looked now much as she did then; a round-face perpetually blackened by mud and soot from the refineries constantly belching out their poison into the surface atmosphere of Nar Shadaa, Nal Hutta's moon. Underneath her nest of unkempt dark red hair her two brown eyes were as round as globes, taking in the myriad of neon and florescent lighting that decorated the market stalls. She was slight and short in stature, and though she had the same cute button nose and full cheeks that had made her such an adorable little girl, back in those days, she had a woman's body now that attracted more than a few glances from passers-by (human and alien alike). Talia used it to her advantage with the merchants down here in the sticks; a friendly giggle and a promising bat of the eyelids could steal more than a heavy blaster and a vibroblade ever could. On her forehead, keeping her fringe in check, her dad's round goggles were strapped to her face. Originally purchased to pilot a swoop bike, in his lifetime he had tinted the lenses so that they could be used to safely shield from the glare of a welding torch, mostly employed on said swoop bike. Talia had inherited them from him – along with a crushing gambling debt – and now rarely left the house without them. They were a memento of his, and a reminder of simpler times.

Freddy's Mercantile lay at the far end of the marketplace, boasting a permanent structure inset into one wall, lit up on the inside by bright florescent lighting. A long panel had been removed from the steel wall, giving customers a makeshift counter to peer over into the shop and make their purchases. Freddy stood behind this counter now, arguing with a pit droid that was prodding at his fat, low-hanging belly as it made its point. As Talia approached, Freddy lost his patience and flicked the droid's nose – immediately, it leapt into the air and folded itself into a neat little package, which Freddy, shaking his ridged head, replaced at the back of the shop. As Talia approached the counter – narrowly avoiding a rodian who had lost control of his pet kath hound and was being dragged helplessly across the floor in front of her – Freddy turned and, seeing her, grinned warmly and held out his four arms in greeting.

'Little Tali!' the fat besalisk called out to her in awkward mouthfuls of Huttese, 'where've you been? I haven't seen you in nearly three months!'

'Been busy, you know how it is Freddy,' Tali responded ably. Though her father had always spoken to her and her older brother Jett in Galactic Basic, fluency in Huttese was a necessity on Nar Shadaa. As a result she was fluent in both languages, and had been from a very young age.

'Oh yeah...' Freddy nodded as he scratched his temple, '...the rat-race catches up to us all.' He sucked in a deep breath and huffed out his enormous chest, and smiled fondly at her. 'That little protocol droid of yours sold quickly,' he continued, 'barely had it in the shop a week and it was purchased by some chagrian from the Mid-Rim – a spice-miner or something, he said he was. Thought you'd like to know that.'

'Yeah...' Talia had been loath to part with that droid, which had served her family and her father's business since before she was born. She had grown up with it, but three months ago had had no conceivable choice but to sell it to Freddy to give her a little cash on hand and keep her dad's shipping business liquid for another little while longer. Now even that didn't seem to be enough.

Freddy must have sensed her thoughtfulness, as he just shrugged his shoulders and cut to the chase. 'What can I help you with, Tali?'

Talia recollected herself. It was going to be hard enough convincing him without moping over her financial situation. She flashed him her best smiled and turned on her heel a little, biting her bottom lip playfully. '_Well_...' she purred, '...Sevek is getting back tonight, so we've a considerable payday coming through. I would consider it a _huge_ favour to me if, in light of that, you'd consider extending your line of credit to me, just to tide me over until the end of the month? I'll be able to pay you back on our next shipment, no hassle.'

'Tali, Tali, Tali...' Freddy sighed and shook his head. All at once Talia felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. Was he going to refuse her? Freddy had _never_ refused her a loan before. 'If I lent you any more credits, I'd just about be a majority shareholder in your company,' he smiled to soften the barb, but the truth in his words stung nonetheless. He gave another heaving sigh. 'Have you considered mortgaging the _Bastion Angel_?'

Talia withdrew in revulsion from the idea. 'I don't want some moneylenders holding the pink slip on my starship!' she said in horror, 'things are bad enough as they are!'

'It would give you a solid cash injection, though, Tali,' Freddy said sympathetically, 'enough maybe to get you out of your slump. The Hutts are into the business of mortgaging starships; they'd only be too eager to lend out to you for the _Angel_...'

Talia shuddered. 'I'm already in debt enough to the Hutts as it is,' she muttered. 'That's sort of my problem. I may as well just sell her off entirely the way things are now.' Talia folded her arms on the countertop, and rested her chin on them, eyes downcast. 'You know I'm not even paying back my father's gambling debts anymore. I got rid of the last of them over a year ago. It's the kriffing interest payments that are burying me now.' Talia sighed, and then stood up straight again, meeting Freddy's eyes. 'Listen, I understand you've got a business to run, Freddy, and I'm not about to play the friendship card. We're both professionals,' she rapped her knuckled twice on the countertop as she turned to walk away; a "dad habit," 'you're top of my list of creditors. After I talk to Sevek tonight and tally up the accounts after his run, maybe an opportunity will present itself.'

'Yeah, maybe,' Freddy responded in a morose tone. He knew as well as Talia did that she was screwed. Still, as she walked away, a twinkle came to the besalisk's eyes. 'You two kids have fun tonight,' he called out, 'and don't work too hard!'

'Oh,' Talia chuckled, waving casually back at him, 'we always do.' The thought of seeing Sevek again brought a warm flutter of girlish excitement to her gut that let her momentarily forget her woes. A welcome shiver raced down her spine. She was quite looking forwards to seeing the _Bastion Angel_'s pilot, and her long-time business partner, again.

Above the subterranean marketplace of the Zanshi District, life for Nar Shadaa's surface dwellers was not much improved. If the stories she had heard from off-worlders and starship pilots flying into the Core were true, then Coruscant, the galactic capital, was an entire planet covered by one big city. Nar Shadaa, by contrast, was an entire moon covered by one massive, choking, sprawling slum. Its giant factories and refineries pumped chemicals into the air that blotted out the sun, causing the denizens of the moon to keep their city's lights on at all times. As a result, unnatural light pollution had scorched the skies from the matrix of alleyways and backstreets that crisscrossed around the planet – Talia had never even seen the stars before her first flight aboard the _Bastion Angel_, when she was 14.

Undaunted by the journey she'd made so many thousands of times, Talia picked her way through the filth and detritus of Nar Shadaa's backstreets, stepping over beggars and the homeless and itinerants looking for handouts, a warm meal and a dry place to stay. As she walked, faces peered out from dark alleyways at her. Some were the wide, wet eyes of children looking for easy pickings to lift a few credits from the passers by. Others, both human and alien, were men, who eyed her up hungrily. Intuitively she could sense their thought processes – she was small and walking alone at night; that should have made her easy to overpower. The fierce expression on her face, however, and the fire in her eyes made any potential assailants think twice about making their move. She smiled to herself as she passed these men by. She didn't know what gave her the natural insight into the people around her, the gut instinct that served her well on so many occasions, but it gave her no small amount of pleasure to feel her potential opponents shrink away from her. She felt safe and secure in herself, even unarmed and alone in the dark like this. The third kind of face peering out at her was women of the night, working the street corners, ever eager for a pliable female customer – females generally paid more than men, and were gentler. As Talia walked, she passed three such working women. The first, a Stennes Shifter, looked at least partially human. At the next corner, though, a tall and slim ranat – a race very closely related to rats – twitched her whiskers at Talia's approach, but Talia shook her head politely. At the far end of the street a female Ithorian gurgled in Huttese, propositioning Talia, but again, Talia shook her head and gave a weak smile. Men would sleep with anything if it was available to them. She shuddered.

Talia lived above her freight company's offices in the Zanshi spaceport, where she had a semi-permanent lease on the company's own docking bay. At this time of the night, the port was quiet, as most star pilots had retired to the nearest cantina or brothel, leaving their ships under lockdown. She punched in her access code at the front door, and it slid aside with a hiss. Glad to be out of the street, Talia let out a sigh of relief as she ascended the stairs, pausing only to look out the viewport at the still-empty docking bay. Sevek obviously hadn't landed yet. She ignored the pang of disappointment in her stomach and continued into the offices, overflowing with unfiled account statements and spare parts for the _Angel_. In one corner, CSE-97-X3, her repair droid, was plugged into a power generator, recharging for the night.

This messy office had been her home ever since she was a little girl, running away from her brother and hiding behind her dad's legs as he tried calculating the weekly budget numbers. It hadn't changed much in all the time she'd spent here; it was still as messy as ever, still grimy and grotty and dark and unappealing. All that was missing was CQ-13, her dad's protocol droid she had been forced to sell to Freddy months ago, her dad himself – who had drunk himself into an early grave rather than face up to his crushing gambling debts – and her big brother, Jett. After her dad had died, he's taken what little cash the company still had on hand and used it to buy passage off of Nar Shadaa to fulfil his childish fantasies of being a bounty hunter. She hadn't heard from him since, and the burden of keeping the family business afloat had rather unceremoniously fallen to her. But it was still her home, and all she had known for her entire life.

Talia removed her jacket and placed it carefully on its stand before leaving the office and going upstairs to the apartment she shared with Sevek. Like the office, the apartment was messy and dark and grimy but it, too, had always been home. She and Sevek now took up the bed that she had once shared with her big brother; her father's room had been converted for storage. She paused upon entering, a faint tingling at the base of her skull causing her hair to stand on end. Did she have company...? A sudden wave of paranoia crept over her, causing her to flick on the lights and stare wide-eyed around the little room. Silence; silence save for the rush of traffic outside the window at the far side, which she'd left ajar to air the apartment out while she was away.

'Stop being so kriffing on edge, Talia,' she admonished herself, unzipping her blouse and crossing into the bathroom. She engaged the controls on the hydro shower and switched it on, smiling gleefully at the hot jets of water that sent up waves of steam into the air. She stripped naked and deposited her clothes back in the main room before standing under the jets and feeling her trials and tribulations melt away under its scorching hot embrace.

It was no small pleasure to push her hands through her hair, which was thick with grease and motor oil, and look down at the water swirling around her feet running black with filth. She had been on the go so long she couldn't even remember the last time she'd been able to wash; it was certainly before Sevek had even left on his current shipping run. She let out a groan of delight, not bothering to stifle it – she was alone, after all. She washed her hair thoroughly and rinsed it out, listening to the droplets of water pound out a machinegun beat on her scalp. At length, after about fifteen minutes, she reached over and switched off the shower jets, and stepped out to wrap a towel around herself.

The bounty hunter was waiting for her the moment she stepped back into the living room. Talia froze, hands instinctively moving up to tighten the towel around her. He was a gran, the three-eyed, long-snouted, brown-skinned aliens from the Expansion Region. In one swollen hand (a genetic mutation, Talia noted subconsciously, that sometimes afflicted their species) he held a blaster pistol, which he now trained lazily on Talia's chest. Naked save for the towel, hair still sopping wet, Talia stared back at him, frozen to the spot. She _knew_ she should have trusted her instincts the moment she stepped into the house.

'Talia Sa'Ran?' the bounty hunter's Huttese growl had an intonation of victory about it, 'the illustrious Desaa the Hutt is calling in her markers. I've been sent to collect.'

Talia regarded the gran with a cool stare, not about to give up so easily. Instinctively, something ethereal was whispering to her, telling her where in that little apartment she kind find ad hoc weapons within reach that she could use against the bounty hunter. But he was armed with a pistol; what good would a knife or saucepan really be?

'Desaa knows I don't have her money,' Talia replied calmly, 'she'll just have to wait in line like all my other creditors.'

'Desaa is leaving for Nal Hutta at the end of this month,' the gran replied, 'she wants to ensure that all of her affairs are in order before she goes.' A glint passed between each of the gran's black eyes in turn. 'She assumed that you would be unable to pay. And she instructed me to bring you before her when that proved to be the case.'

'Do I have a say in the matter?'

The gran flexed his chubby fingers, tightening them around the metal grip of his blaster. 'Does it look like you have a say in the matter?'

Talia bit her bottom lip and swallowed hard. This was a situation she had not wanted to find herself in. Sevek was due back any minute now with a shipment of luxury items from Corellia. She had been looking forwards to an early night with him before worrying about the accountancy in the morning. Being dragged before Desaa the Hutt put a damper on her good mood. She had already failed to move Freddy with her pleas; what would Desaa make of her excuses? Talia sighed.

'Well, can you get out at least, let me get dressed? I hardly think Desaa is interested in me showing up to our meeting naked.'

What passed for a smile crossed the gran's goat-like lips, and he shook his head. 'I'm under instructions not to let you out of my sight, in case you try to scarper off. No. I stay.'

Talia shot the bounty hunter an icy look, but then, not breaking eye contact, she dropped her towel. It fell to the floor around her feet in a crumpled heap. Unaccustomed to such forwardness, the gran's eyes went wide, and his aim lowered a few centimetres as he momentarily lost focus on what he was meant to be doing. Talia stepped out of the towel defiantly and crossed the room, butt naked, over to where she'd thrown her clothes onto the couch. She slipped them on and snapped her goggles back over her hair, combing it back with a hand, and then, hands on her hips, turned to face the goon.

'Shall we?' she asked, motioning to the door. After the gran had collected himself, he nodded, and gestured with his pistol for Talia to lead the way.

Desaa the Hutt, one of only a handful of Hutt crimelords who actually made her home on the small moon of Nar Shadaa, held court at the Foren Sin, one of two thriving nightclubs in Zanshi District – the _other_ being Talia's preferred haunt. The wookie bouncer blocking the way to the VIP entrance around the back clearly recognised Talia's gran captive, as he let them both pass with only a soft purr in greeting. The bounty hunter held the door open for Talia and, rolling her eyes, she stepped inside.

The inside of the club was dark and dingy, the air scoured by lasers flashing about in time with the arcane beat of the music. The VIP section was a balcony seating area overlooking the brimming dancefloor below, the dancers and other merrymakers almost invisible amidst the dry ice that crept across the dancefloor in great smoky tendrils. The VIP area itself was packed with some of Desaa the Hutt's trusted advisors, bodyguards, and slaves.

Desaa herself lay (or sat? Or stood? Talia could never tell) on a dais in the centre of the floor, her massive, sluglike, slimy naked body taking up most of the space. Chained to her neck and huddling up to her lumpy belly was a young male ranat, dark fur groomed pristinely and wearing only a small loincloth to keep himself decent. He shivered against her, looking out at the bright, dancing lights of the club with terrified eyes, whiskers twitching. On either side of the Hutt was a rodian and another gran, both cradling light repeating blasters. Talia guessed that these were Desaa's bodyguards. Scattered about the balcony were her courtiers. In one corner, three Durosians were huddled, gesticulating to one another with dramatic hand movements as they discussed something in hushed tones. Two insectoid Yam'rii were sat at a table by the balcony's railings, staring down at the dancefloor below. Speaking with Desaa herself there was an elephantine Pacithhip and a wolflike devel, both of whom stopped speaking at Desaa's instructions. She had noticed Talia and the bounty hunter come in. Talia felt a knot forming in her stomach as, with a shove from the gran, she approached the dais. She hated dealing with Desaa.

Upon seeing Talia, Desaa gave a booming laugh that was mimicked by her sycophantic courtiers. 'Talia Sa'Ran!' she called in a loud voice. 'I'm glad you accepted my generous invitation!' she gave another booming laugh and, on cue, her lackeys joined in with her. 'I trust you've brought with you the credits you owe me, as a going away present!' she laughed again.

Talia stepped up in front of the dais, staring into Desaa's large eyes, feet spread apart, hoping she looked more confident than she felt. 'Your Magnificence,' Talia said in the strongest voice she could muster, 'I wasn't expecting you to call in your markers today. I thought I would at least have until the end of the week. My partner is flying back into port tonight with a shipment of goods from Corellia...I was planning to pay you back immediately with the advance proceeds from the shipment.'

Talia instinctively sensed the Hutt's humour darken. Desaa's eyes narrowed. 'You planned on no such thing!' she boomed, and at the sound Talia recoiled a little. 'Your plan was to pay back your fat friend Freddy, and use the goodwill that bought you to manipulate him into extending your line of credit, which you would _only then_ use to pay me back a fraction of what is owed! Oh, Talia, you poor little thing,' the sound of mock pity in Desaa's voice turned Talia's blood to ice in her veins, 'your tricks and delays and bending of the rules...I know them all by now. You are in so deep you don't even remember what the surface looks like.' Talia swallowed hard and fought against all instinct to look away and break eye contact. She held firm in her resolve. 'You're still young, though,' Desaa continued, 'and remarkably beautiful. You don't have to suffer,' she said. 'A girl like you could have quite a comfortable life as a pleasure slave on Nal Hutta.' As she spoke, the Pacithhip and devel next to her both leaned forwards, eyes wide as they drank in the sight of Talia. The devel licked one of his pointed fangs in desire. Talia recoiled a bit more, disgusted at Desaa's vision for her future.

'I'm _not_ going to turn my family's business over to you!' Talia tried to sound defiant, so that Desaa wouldn't sense the fact that she had just played the images of herself at the mercy of Nal Hutta's vast alien population through her head, and was repulsed by it.

'The entire worth of your family's business is not even enough to get you out of debt with me, little human,' Desaa said quietly, but then a light shone in her eyes and she licked her upper lip sickeningly. 'Your freighter, on the other hand...'

'And I am _not_ going to turn over the _Angel_!' Talia protested bitterly.

'Then it would seem that you're out of options,' Desaa said, barely able to conceal her enjoyment at Talia's suffering.

'Your hired thug said you weren't leaving Nar Shadaa until the end of this month,' Talia retorted quickly. 'I still have until then to come up with the money. I implore you, Your Illustrious Magnificence, to give me time until then to make up the funds. I will be able to pay you back – _in full_ – before you leave for Nal Hutta.'

Desaa shot the bounty hunter an enraged glare; obviously, having her personal plans spilled to her debtors was not something Desaa the Hutt took lightly. Before she could respond, though, the devel leaned in and whispered something in her ear, something that the Pacithhip nodded rapidly in agreement at. Talia shuffled uncomfortably where she stood. She didn't like this at all.

'Very well,' Desaa announced at length, 'I will give you until the end of the month to pay me back in full – but if you cannot come up with the money before I leave for home, I shall not be taking you with me.' Talia raised an eyebrow in confusion, but Desaa continued. 'Instead I will auction you off as a slave amongst my courtiers here in Nar Shadaa,' she gestured with her fat little arms around the VIP section, 'and one of them can have you...and do with you whatever he pleases,' the well-timed pause sent Talia's head spinning in horror, and she had to fight against the gag reflex that naturally took hold as both the Pacithhip and the devel sniggered gleefully at the deal they had worked out for themselves. Behind her, even the Yam'rii clicked their buglike arms together in acknowledgement of the suggestion. Talia realised that, without her consent, her fate had already been decided. If she couldn't come up with the money in a month's time, her father's company would be liquidated by the Hutts, and she would be sold into slavery to one of the aliens who now was gazing at her longingly in that dingy little nightclub.

'Does that seem reasonable to you?' Desaa asked, and even without the mocking tone her voice took, Talia knew it was a loaded question.

'Of course, Your Magnificence,' Talia said in a steady and resolute voice, giving the slug a sweeping bow. 'Your mercy knows no bounds.'

Desaa the Hutt gave another booming laugh and, once again, the male aliens around her chimed in, this time more earnestly and hauntingly than before.

Before Talia turned to leave, her eyes met with the slave ranat nestled in Desaa's slimy bosom, and she thought, for just a moment, that she registered a look of pity in his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

All the ideas I have for this story, it turns out, are weighted towards the second half of it, when things began to spiral towards the climax - I'm finding it difficult to map out the early plot in my head, but, I'm trying to fight my way through it nonetheless. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, might give me the kick I need :) Hope everybody enjoys!

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**CHAPTER TWO**

"**Jana's Plan"**

Talia stumbled back through the backstreets and alleys of Nar Shadaa in a daze. The world swirled violently around her, and she felt at times as if she was about to be sick. Her conversation with Desaa the Hutt replayed itself over and over again in her mind. She had less than a standard month, so the deal had been struck, to pay back everything she owed the Hutts or she would be sold into slavery here on Nar Shadaa. Talia remembered the longing gazes some of the aliens at the nightclub had cast her way, and shivered in horror. Her future belonged to one of those aliens, and it promised to be a fate worse than death.

Lost in her thoughts, Talia swayed and stumbled, careening sideways into a small alley cut between two old apartment blocks. She cried out as she fell into the darkness, but was suddenly grabbed by two hands that materialised from thin air.

'Easy, child, easy!' a voice rasped at her through the darkness. Talia looked up and recoiled in fright from the face of a badly scarred Nikto, who now stared down at her. 'It's dangerous for a little girl to go wandering alone late at night,' he continued, 'come back with me and I'll keep you safe.'

'N-no,' Talia stammered, 'it's fine, really, my home is only a couple of blocks from here, I...'

'Oh but I insist,' the Nikto's grip on her shoulders was tightening, starting to hurt her now. Talia squirmed a little in his gasp. 'I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to you.'

'I'm fine,' Talia stressed, 'please let me go.'

The Nikto's large obsidian-black eyes stared expressionlessly at Talia, and she withered under his gaze. 'It's really not safe out at night,' he said again, 'you'd be much better off just coming back with me...'

It began with a surge of panic. That was normal; a momentary spark of claustrophobia and fear when she realised the alien was not letting her go. But then something happened. The spark caught alight. The pang of panic in the pit of her stomach suddenly exploded, sending waves of superhuman strength rippling through her muscles and coating her vision in a blood red. She yelled out – in what sounded more like a monstrous roar – and wrenched her shoulders free from the Nikto's grasp. His eyes, such as they could, went wide in surprise for just a split second before something slammed into his chest and sent him careening back through the alley. He landed with a hard smack against the hard ground and slid back several more metres before his skull crashed into an outcrop from one of the buildings. Talia looked dumbly after him. The anger that had taken her over dissipated, as if it had shot out of her and into the Nikto, firing him back. Dazed and confused, the Nikto lifted his head slowly and stared back down the alley at her.

'I-I'm sorry,' he said, his own voice now drenched in mindless terror, 'I didn't know...I didn't realise! I'm sorry!' and with that, he jumped to his feet and disappeared out the opposite end of the alleyway.

Talia stared down at her hands, flexing her fingers gently. They tingled with some sensation she had never felt before. She swallowed hard. What had just happened to her?

As well as (apparently) protecting her from a potential assailant, the blinding flash of anger had sharpened and focused her thoughts. All of a sudden, ideas were forming in her mind, ways to cut costs and inject a bit of cash into her business to make her payments to Desaa the Hutt on time. Talia reached out a hand to prop her up against the wall of the alleyway. She suddenly felt extremely tired. Whatever had just happened to her had taken a lot out of her.

And there was the idea in her mind, too.

She knew what she had to do – the most simple, obvious way to cut costs in a business of just two employees – and the thought of doing so made her feel sick. She stumbled out of the alleyway and looked on down the road where, at the far end, the Zanshi spaceport was lit up as a beacon to craft flying overhead.

He wasn't going to take this well at all.

Talia's heart was heavy as she quietly keyed in the code on the front door. It slid open with a hiss, but she hesitated just outside. Her confusion over what had happened back in the alleyway had been replaced by the dread of what she knew now she had to do. Desaa had backed her into a corner, she thought to herself in a vain attempt to justify it. _She had no choice_. But as she ascended the stairs to the office, she realised it was proving to be little consolation.

Out the viewport that was in place halfway up the stairs, Talia saw the _Bastion Angel_ docked below, service droids moving back and forth to unload the _Angel_'s cargo into the storage hangar beneath the office. The sight should have excited, but instead it incited a flurry of foreboding in her heart. The incident in the alley, too, had exhausted her, and as she opened the office door and stepped inside, she decided that all she wanted to do was sleep. She would deal with the rest of it in the morning.

Inside, everything was much as how she'd left it an hour ago. She could hear the hiss of the shower running upstairs, and realised that Sevek was home already. She swallowed hard. The weight of her decision felt even more crushing now that he was close. She shook her head and ascended the stairs into the living quarters, removing her goggles from her forehead and placing them down on the kitchen counter before striding into the bedroom. She stripped down to her underwear and climbed into bed, pulling the covers up tight around her shoulders. She wanted to just fall asleep and not have to deal with reality until the morning.

She closed her eyes, and felt exhaustion seeping over her frame. She was back in the alleyway. She could feel the raw emotion and power coursing through her veins; she saw the momentary look of fear in the eyes of the Nikto before her rage exploded out of her like some vengeful spirit and smashed him back across the floor of the alleyway. She saw him tremble as he stood to his feet. 'I didn't know...' he said in a tone of abject terror, '...I didn't realise! I'm sorry!' And then he was gone, leaving Talia alone and confused. What had he meant by what he'd said? What hadn't he realised? As she dozed, Talia could feel the beast again in her stomach, feel its power flowing through her veins. It was toxic; like a narcotic coursing through her. She squirmed and wriggled under the covers. It felt hot underneath her skin, like a furnace of fire and passion and energy. It made her feel strong; stronger than she had ever felt in her life. Talia opened her mouth to suck in a lungful of cool air; but that, too, was like hot ash and she coughed and spluttered and choked on it. Her skin was damp with sweat, sticking her to the bedclothes as she writhed in the heat. She saw the Nikto again. The fear in his eyes. The terrified falter in his voice. It was magnificent. It was...

...the light turned on, and Talia realised she was no longer alone in the bedroom. She opened her eyes.

Sevek stood in the doorway, pale green skin glistening from the shower, a towel wrapped tightly around his waist. His long lekku were hanging freely down the back of his head, and on his face he wore a look of concern. He was staring directly at Talia.

'I was wondering where you were,' he said with a boyish grin that would, at any other time, have made Talia melt. Now, though, seeing him reminded her of what she still had to do – and it made her feel sick. 'It's like a furnace in here,' he frowned, crossing over the window on the far side of the room and cracking it slightly ajar. 'Are you alright?'

'Yeah...' Talia muttered with a sleepy smile. The sensation that had gripped her just moments ago was already fading away. '...just sleepy, baby.' She yawned quietly, raising a hand to cover her mouth.

Sevek grinned again and yawned in empathetic reaction, stretching out as he did so, his hard abs glistening in the bedroom light. Talia felt herself quiver a little. 'That's not like you at all,' he said slyly, 'in bed before dawn? You sure you're okay?'

Talia sat up in bed and shot him her most genuine smile. 'Of course,' she answered him, and already felt guilty. _Do it! Do it now!_ A voice in her head screamed, but she ignored. She wanted to wait until the morning.

Hearing this, Sevek smiled back at her and strode over to the bed, peeling down the covers on his side. Talia watched, wide-eyed, as he let the towel fall from around his waist, revealing himself to her, and climbed in next to her. He put her arms around her and held her close, and Talia snuggled up to him, breathing heavily. In his powerful, muscular arms she felt small and delicate, but safe, and in that moment she wanted to be nowhere else. All of her worries melted away in his firm grip.

Lifting her up, he placed her down underneath him, and smiled shyly the way he always did in bed with her. She nodded, and leant up gently to kiss him on the lips, her hands running up and down his sides and along his muscular back. He pressed himself against her, and she shivered, stroking suggestively down one of his extremely sensitive lekku. Sevek exhaled shakily and shut his eyes. He looked so adorable like this, she thought. She kissed him again, and he kissed her back, hard and passionate, his hands caressing her breasts and dropping down below her belly. She winced at his touch, and he looked at her with eyes wide and innocent.

Talia bit her bottom lip, and nodded her head quickly. 'Mm hmm.'

She gave a heaving sigh as he entered her, and felt herself melting down underneath the warmth and weight of his body.

Once the two lovers had had their fill, they held each other in their arms, eyes closed, enjoying the gentle rising and falling of each other's chests in time with their sedated breathing.

Eventually they broke their embrace, and Sevek lay on his back with his hands folded behind his head. Talia lay her head down on his chest and drew shapes on his hard stomach with a finger. Sevek guffawed suddenly and grabbed her hand.

'That tickles!' he protested, kissing the crown of her head gently. Talia just sighed and flattened her palm against his stomach. He must have sensed her rapid change in mood, because he added, 'Are you alright, Tali?'

Talia grimaced. Since they'd finished, and as their bodies had cooled down, the gravity of her predicament had returned to her unbidden and unforgiving. She trembled slightly in Sevek's arms. She knew what he was like; once he sensed that something was off, he wouldn't give up until he'd gotten it out of her, one way or the other. Talia picked herself up and sat up on her knees, turning to look at Sevek.

'I...I need to tell you something,' she said in the tone that had killed so many relationships over so many thousands of years.

The blood drained from Sevek's green face, and he sat up, a look of worry flashing over him like a mask. Talia took a deep breath.

'Just before you landed, Desaa the Hutt summoned me...' she gulped, and Sevek put a sympathetic hand on her arm. Talia brushed him off. 'Wait...please...let me finish.' Sevek nodded, and Talia continued, her voice breaking. 'She's calling in all her markers. If I don't pay her back by the end of the month, she's going to take over the entire business. I have no choice but...' Talia stammered, and backed up a few words, '...I have no choice but to take drastic measures to ensure that I have the money on time. I have to let you go.'

Sevek stared dumbly at her for a few seconds, not quite interpreting her meaning. 'What?' he said at length in what sounded like a laugh, as if waiting for her to smile and tell him it was all a joke.

'I have to let you go,' Talia sniffed, 'I can pilot the _Angel_ myself if I have to...I just can't justify keeping on a starpilot when the business is making no money. I'm so sorry, baby.'

Sevek recoiled away from her, a look of horror spreading over his face. 'And you decided all this yourself?' he demanded, 'without even talking to me?'

'I was _going _to talk to you, I was going to tell you, I just...'

'You just what?' he asked, and another laugh escaped his throat; but this one was harsh, disbelieving, mocking. Talia felt herself getting very small. 'You just thought you'd sleep with me one last time before _firing_ me?'

'Wait,' Talia felt her heart being dunked into a bucket of ice, 'wait wait wait, no, what do you mean, one last time...?'

Sevek raised his eyebrows at her. 'You can't just _fire_ your boyfriend, Tali,' he said matter-of-factly. Talia felt herself go pale.

'No, Sev, no...' she was suddenly caught up in her thoughts, unable to think straight. Sevek began to climb out of the bed, and Talia, in a panic, clawed at him to pull him back, but he shrugged her off. 'No, wait, I don't...I didn't mean...what are you going?'

'I'm leaving,' Sevek snapped back, 'you've already made your decision. Now you have to live with.'

'No...' Talia croaked, '...this isn't what I wanted. You know how things are; I even thought you'd have seen this coming, I mean...'

'_Seen this coming_?' Sevek shouted, turning on her, and Talia edged away from him in fright. 'Being _fired_ from the best job I've ever had by my own _girlfriend_? Wow, you're right, maybe I should have seen that coming.' He scoffed, and turned away again to get dressed.

'Wait, Sev, please...' Talia begged, '...just...sit down and let's talk, okay?' An intonation of mindless hope slipped into her voice, and she damned herself for it. 'Please just let's talk about this...'

'There's nothing to talk about,' his trousers already on, Sevek grabbed his top from the floor and threw it onto his shoulder, making for the door.

'Baby, _please_,' Talia shouted, 'I love you!'

Sevek stopped.

He paused at the door, and turned slightly, his face profiled against the light from the living room. Talia gulped. Was he reconsidering?

'The _Angel_'s hyperdrive is faulty,' he said after a long pause, 'I wouldn't fly out of the system without getting her looked at.'

And then he walked through the door, leaving Talia bent double over on the bed, still smelling of him, sobbing bitterly into the sheets. She curled up pathetically, wrapping the covers around her and, shivering, wept into the quilt in great heaving sobs.

She would have rocked herself to sleep there had she not been overtaken by a wave of crippling depression. Lying naked in a pool of her own tears, moaning to herself in the cold reaches of the dark, she suddenly realised she could no longer bear her own company. She had to get out or the four walls of her room were going to drive her mad.

Talia slid off her bed into the bathroom, washing herself thoroughly, scrubbing away every trace of Sevek that still clung to her. Her heart was like lead inside her; heavy and dead and poisonous. She couldn't stop to dwell on him now. She dressed again quickly, snapping her goggles back onto her head for the third time that day, and left the house.

From Zanshi District's spaceport it was but a ten minute walk to the second of the district's two booming nightclubs; as a regular, Talia was able to slip in without having to flash some credits to speed the process along. The chagrian bouncer gave her a friendly nod and she flashed him a wink and a smile there were entirely at odds with how she was feeling.

The pounding of the heavy bass numbed Talia to everything she was feeling as she strode confidently through the dark club. Blue and green lasers streaked the air above her head as she strode past the dancefloor, lit up with bright pink and sky blue. Usually, she would head straight to it, twirl her way into the middle of the throng of merrymakers and balter without a care in the world until the sun rose and the music died. Tonight she had no such childlike carelessness, and she made straight for the bar, ignoring the admiring glances she got from patrons as she went.

She sat up at the bar and rapped her knuckles twice on the table, for nobody's benefit but her own. Even in the warm womb of the club she could feel the spectre of Sevek hanging over her, threatening to laden her down. She shrugged it off and, when the barman eventually came over to her (a young and attractive Chiss), she asked for their strongest Corellian ale. He obliged her quickly and professionally, and she downed the burning liquid in one go and asked for another. And then another.

With her fourth drink in her hand, Talia spun around on her stool to watch the dancers who took up the podiums at the far end of the dancefloor. Mainly twi'leks and zeltrons, the girls swung around their poles with such effortless grace and sex appeal that Talia found herself envying them. What she wouldn't have given to boast their immaculate figures and perfect elegance.

The figure of one of the zeltron dancers caught her eye, and Talia smiled. She hadn't counted on seeing her working tonight. She clung to the pole in a black leather cat suit that hugged her perfect figure so tight as to look as if she'd simply painted her body black. The zip at the front was pulled down almost to her navel, revealing her ample bosom and the bright baby pink skin that was rare even amongst zeltrons; her hair was the same colour, weaving down in straight pink strands to her hips as they ground against the pole with practised desperation.

The zeltron twirled around the pole, one leg up in the air, and wrapping it around at the knee, her other leg doing the same. She continued her spin, now clinging with both legs as she hung upside-down off the pole and flashed her spectators a salacious grin. Finally, she reached around to take a hold of the pole with both hands and, with a flourish, flipped off of it and landed on her feet, bowing to the men watching her before stepping down off the platform.

Talia would have walked over to greet her, but something forced her to remain seated. Something told her, before the zeltron crossed the floor to the bar and asked for a drink of her own, that she was about to do so. Talia didn't understand the feeling and didn't know what it was, but when the dancer made her way over, she wasn't in the least bit surprised. It was as if she had anticipated it.

'Tali?' a beam crossed the dancer's face when she saw Talia sitting there. Talia finished off her drink before hugging her tightly. 'Didn't expect to see you tonight!' she purred. 'Thought you and Sevek would be keeping each other company!'

'That's sort of what brings me here, Jana,' Talia admitted with a grimace.

'Oh no...' Jana's face fell as she registered Talia's mood. All zeltron possessed some rudimentary affinity for telepathy, and as such were naturally empathic; they could sense another being's mood just by being close. Talia needn't have explained her comment; Jana already knew. 'I am so sorry, hun,' she wailed, 'what happened...?'

Talia shook her head. Jana just nodded; she knew immediately that Talia wasn't about to talk about it. 'All I know it,' Talia said, 'I'm all out of luck. And I don't even know what I'm doing here anymore.' She bit her bottom lip. 'It's all been a waste of time. All of it.'

Jana looked distraught. On the zeltron homeworld, negative emotions were generally avoided, as they spread like wildfire throughout the telepathically-linked population and dragged everybody down. Being so close to a morose Talia was, in turn, depressing Jana. She sat her drink down and gave a heaving sigh.

'Hey, look,' Talia put a hand out and touched Jana's, 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you down when you're working.'

'No...' Jana shook her head, and a strand of pink hair fell prettily in front of her face. 'No you know...I've been thinking about things myself recently. About life here and...what sort of future I want for myself.' She shrugged. 'And for my kids.'

'I never knew you wanted kids...' Talia admitted.

Jana smiled weakly. 'It's not something a dancer talks about, you know?' she cocked her head back in the direction of the podiums.

Talia nodded her head quietly. She was lost in her own worries; Sevek, Desaa the Hutt, her family's business...slavery...she shuddered, and Jana picked up on it immediately. She looked downcast, waiting for Talia to speak.

'Sometimes...' Talia drummed her fingers on the bar top, '...sometimes I fantasise about just leaving. To Hell with my father's company; HE ran it into the ground, HE trapped me in this life. Sometimes I dream of just...running away.'

Talia smiled at her own childishness. She knew it wasn't even worth thinking about. It could never happen. But Jana wasn't speaking. Talia looked up, and saw the zeltron staring intently at her.

'Well?' Jana asked.

'Well...what?'

Jana shrugged. 'Why don't you?'

'Why don't I _what_? Come on, Jan, we're not all telepathic...'

'Run away, I mean, Tali.' Jana's eyes were deadly serious now. 'Why don't we just...get out of here? Take the _Bastion Angel_ and go?'

Talia laughed out loud, and called for another drink. By the time it arrived, she realised that Jana, to her disbelief, was being deadly serious.

'Just...what exactly are you trying to suggest?'


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

"**Angels & Demons"**

"...I mean it's not like we'd have to barter passage off-world! You already have a ship!"

A pink sun was creeping slowly into the sky above Zanshi District. Jana was still talking excitedly across the diner's table from Talia, but Talia was no longer listening. The night was finally taking its toll on her. She started gormlessly at the fry that the waiting droid had just placed down in front of her, and felt sick to her stomach. Her head felt as if it was about to split open at the seams. She'd had _far_ too much to drink.

'Tali?' Jana suddenly became aware that she was not being listened to. 'Tali?'

'Yeah...' Talia murmured, playing with her food. The more Jana had spoken since the club – and the three other joints they'd hit afterwards until coming to the diner for food – the more she'd started to see sense in Jana's ideas. It was crazy, it was scary, it was dangerous – but it would afford them _both_ a new life away from Nar Shadaa; away from everything that entailed. Talia shuffled uncomfortably. She could no longer tell if the idea appealed to her because, secretly, she'd been playing with the idea in her head for months, or because of the natural pheromones that a zeltron excreted that made the people they dealt with far more pliable and agreeable than they otherwise would be. She looked up at Jana's bright eyes and gorgeous pink face. She wouldn't do that to her...would she?

Jana sensed Talia's apprehension and shrugged. 'Eat up your food,' she said with a purr, 'it'll make you feel better!'

Talia stared at Jana. She envied the zeltron's inherent ability to absorb copious amounts of alcohol and not feel the after-effects. Jana looked as fresh and pampered as someone just starting off on a night out; it made Talia jealous to no end. And could be tedious to no end to boot.

Begrudgingly, Talia lifted a forkful of food and nibbled at it suspiciously. It was alright; it had the consistency and taste of rubber, but it was hot, and as it touched her tongue her stomach gave a hungry growl. Talia resigned herself and started to eat the meal that Jana had already wolfed down ten minutes prior.

Her head was spinning, and not just from the drinks. What was she even discussing? Giving up the family business, that her grandfather had started when he first arrived on Nar Shadaa? Disrespecting her father's grave? Abandoning Jett...? Talia scrunched up her nose around a mouthful of hot food as she thought, fully aware that Jana was privy to everything running through her head. All this time since Jett had left, she had nursed the private hope that one day he'd return to her – a rich and famous bounty hunter from the Mid-Rim. Part of the reason she'd fought tooth and nail to keep her father's business afloat was because, if he ever was to return, that would be the first place he went to look for her. Months had turned into years, yet still she'd seen or heard absolutely no sign that he was even still alive. But she still clung desperately to the hope of his eventual return. To run away now was to give up hope, to resign herself to the fact that she would never see her brother again...

'It's not giving up, sweetie,' Jana said suddenly, reaching across the table to touch Talia's hand gently and wrenching her from her thoughts. 'There's a whole galaxy out there to explore. He could be anywhere. And when the time comes...he'll know how to find you.'

'It's nice of you to say,' Talia said with a weak smile, 'but you know that's not true. Not if we have to go so far off the radar that the Hutts can't even track us down.'

Jana relinquished her grip, and looked downcast for a moment – Talia's sombre mood was clearly affecting her. The she flicked her eyes back up, and said, in a very serious tone, 'And what about Desaa the Hutt?'

'What about her?'

'Well...what if you can't pay her back? I mean, you don't think you can, right...? What about what she said she was going to do to you at the end of the month if you couldn't pay her...?'

Talia shivered, the image of the aliens in that club's VIP section playing through her mind again. She tried to turn her mind to something else, but found that she couldn't; she felt helpless at their mercy, depressed at the grim realisation that the only way to escape such a horrible fate was to get off-world aboard the _Angel_ with Jana...a sickly-sweet smell had climbed into the air, tantalising Talia's nostrils as she sat there, relaxing her...

'_Jan_!' Talia snapped, 'stop it!'

All at once, the images dissipated and the smell vanished from the air as Jana stopped emitting the pheromones she had been using to try and convince Talia to come around. 'I'm sorry, hun,' Jana grimaced, 'I just...I honestly think this is the best thing for you, Tali. There's nothing for you here...only heartbreak and...' she shivered, '...slavery.'

Talia sighed. She was right, of course, but then Talia had secretly known that since before leaving the first club. Jana was right; if she stayed here, she was dooming herself to a life that didn't even bear thinking about. Desaa the Hutt had forced her hand – the only option left available to her now was to run, as far away as the _Angel_ could bear to take them, and then a little more. When Talia looked back up at Jana, she was grinning. She knew Talia had come around.

The two girls got to work, hashing out the details of their great escape over the remnants of Talia's meal (which she offered up half of to Jana, who gladly accepted) and two more cups of jawa juice ('To take the edge off,' Jana winked). If they were going to do this, Jana stressed, they would have to do it as fast as possible – that meant, Talia calculated, a dawn take-off the very next day, assuming she could repair the hyperdrive that Sevek had warned her about overnight. She squirmed as she said the words. That meant a second night straight without any sleep.

'You can sleep on the flight!' Jana said with a playful punch to Talia's shoulder, reading her thoughts and giggling at them.

Finally, they settled on their duties for the next full day, until they would meet again in the _Angel's_ docking bay. Jana was to round up supplies and all the necessary equipment for a long space flight, while Talia was to see to the repair of the hyperdrive. The girls paid their tab and stood up to leave, embracing tightly by the diner's door (Jana planting a soft kiss on Talia's cheek).

'We're really doing this, huh?' Talia asked as she began to walk away.

'Yeah we are!' Jana replied enthusiastically, and they waved to each other before going their separate ways.

It had begun.

Lower Zanshi's marketplace was eerily quiet this early in the morning. The crushing throng of shoppers from the previous night had all but dispersed, leaving bleary-eyed merchants to dismantle their stalls, or get their children or droids to do so. Talia returned to the marketplace, at less brisk a walk than before, and glanced around in wonderment. She'd never seen it this empty. The floor – visible now for the first time in Talia's memory – was a blanket of discarded packets of food and drink, blowing to and fro as a sanitation droid swept over the metal grating to scoop up the litter. The neon signs that had pointed the way to so many different stalls and makeshift shops had been deactivated, giving the large empty expanse a more sober and dreary look than at peak hours. In alcoves along one wall, the dirty faces of little urchins stared up at Talia, either (she guessed) waiting for a handout or sizing her up for a quick score. Neither undertaking came to fruition; she was carrying a credit chip in favour of hard currency and something about her aura disinclined the children from trying to pickpocket her.

In the far corner, back turned to the gaping window that looked out onto the marketplace, Freddy busied himself with tidying up his shop and powering down his droids. It was his usual routine; to keep the storefront open for the entire night, then grab a meal at daybreak and nab a few hours sleep before re-opening in time for the post-lunch rush. Talia didn't know how he did it; the besalisk seemed to spend every last waking hour manning his shop front.

Talia strode up to the counter and leaned in, clearing her throat noisily to attract Freddy's attention. He turned suddenly with a start, his eyes growing wide as he saw her staring intently at him. Freddy scratched his chin thoughtfully with one of his swollen hands as he looked at her.

'Little Tali!' he exclaimed, 'so curious seeing you here. I just had the strangest visit from Sevek...'

That threw Talia a little, and she felt a bucket of ice empty itself into her heart. She swallowed hard, and struggled to keep her face from giving anything away. 'Oh yeah?' she tried to sound nonchalant, 'what was he looking for?'

Freddy shook his head in bewilderment, and the excess skin beneath his chin wobbled with the movement. 'He asked me to extend him a line of credit – naturally, I refused, telling him what I told you last night,' Talia gulped, and braced herself. Freddy continued, 'he then said to me that he was no longer working for you, so his tab was now separate.' Freddy shot her an accusing glare. 'What exactly happened?'

Talia swallowed again. 'As he said,' she answered, 'he's no longer employed by me.' Before Freddy could ask any more questions, Talia cut him off. 'Listen, Freddy, I need some help. I need parts for a Class-4 Hyperdrive Generator; the hyperdrive on the _Angel_ is faulty and I'd rather do a general repair now that I have an excuse.'

Freddy scratched his temple in thought. 'Tali,' he sighed, 'what I said to you last night...that hasn't changed. I can't offer you any more free rides; not until you pay me back what you already owe me. I mean, I've a business to—'

'I'm not asking for a handout,' Talia said, 'Sevek brought back a cache of luxury goods before I...before _he_ left the company,' she coughed nervously, '...they're yours, all of them. You know where my warehouse is at the Zanshi commercial port; just send over some freight droids and I'll load it up. In return for a Class-4.'

Freddy's eyes went wide as he weighed up the opportunity in his head. 'Luxury Corellian goods, you say,' he whispered as he thought to himself, 'a warehouse full..._for free_?' Freddy approached the counter and leaned on it, staring directly into Talia's eyes. She held his gaze. 'Tali, just last night you were desperate for an extension on your line of credit – you need the balance on those goods to hold you down 'til the end of the month. No way would you hand them over for free just to make repairs to a Class-4; not when you know better than anyone you could jury-rig a Class-6 to get you where you need to go, practically for free amongst some vendors down in these parts.'

'Tampering with a hyperdrive is illegal; even out in Hutt space,' Talia said, hoping she didn't sound as pathetic to Freddy as she did to herself.

'_Tali_.' His response was a stern, not-buying-it tone. Talia sighed, wracking her brains for an excuse. Although Freddy had been a father figure to her throughout her grapples with the business and the crippling debt left to her by her father, he was, at heart, a savvy and ruthless businessman in Nar Shadaa's undercity. For that reason, she knew that she couldn't entirely trust him with what she and Jana were planning – if he knew that she was planning to skip out on her debts, not just to him but to the Hutts, he wouldn't think twice about selling her out and reaping his share of the business that would no doubt be liquidated the moment she was sold into slavery.

'Something's come up,' she said at last, 'an opportunity that could dig me out of this hole with the Hutts. I just need a functioning starship to make the pick-up. I can afford to lose this cargo; I've ran the numbers in my head. It's yours.'

She waited with baited breath for what seemed like an eternity, as Freddy considered the fabrication she'd just told him. Technically, it wasn't entirely a lie – something _had _come up, something that _would_ get her out of her hole with the Hutts, and as a result she _could_ now afford to lose the cargo that Sevek had picked up. It was just that it wasn't more cargo she was flying out towards; it was freedom.

At last, Freddy made up his mind. He barked an order, and a large freight droid at the back of the store activated itself, beeping and whirring at its master. Freddy looked back at Talia.

'Load it up with whatever you think you'll need,' he said, and her heart soared. 'When you unload at the port, load it back up with everything from your stores it can carry. And good luck on your trip out.'

Talia beamed as Freddy opened out the service hatch for the droid to hover through, slapping its large flatbed firmly with the palm of two of his giant hands. She was so delighted she could have kissed him; but she stopped herself. She remembered that it was, after all, _him_ who she was about to betray as much as Desaa the Hutt.

It took the better part of the next hour to travel back and forth between Freddy's shop and the warehouse, transporting Class-4 parts one way and Sevek's Corellian cargo the other. As the sun reached the midway-point in the sky, Talia loaded the last of the warehouse's crates onto the freight droid's flatbed, and waved it off as it disappeared through the loading bay doors. She tapped in a command on the keypad, and with a monotonous drone followed by a crash that reverberated around the small spaceport, the loading bay doors shut.

Talia spun on her heel, and got to work.

She and CSE-97-X3 got to work, quickly disconnecting the hyperdrive from the ship's engine and carrying it outside to rest in the port by the _Bastion Angel_. They spent another two hours removing parts and comparing them to the items Talia had picked up at Freddy's. The motivator, she saw, was blown out – probably Sevek trying to push the _Angel_ to her limits to get back ahead of time. Flyboys were all the same, Talia thought, and an unbidden smile crossed her lips. She missed him already...

She tried shaking Sevek from her thoughts. There was a lot of work still to do. Occasionally, Jana would drop by with goods or supplies for their journey, and Talia would rush them into the warehouse and seal it up again – she didn't think Desaa would have spies watching the spaceport, but, you couldn't be too careful on this moon. If anyone caught wind of what she and Jana were planning, they were both in a world of hurt. Otherwise, the work was monotonous, and against the backdrop of Talia's heartbreak regarding Sevek, her fear and doubt over what she was planning to do and her paranoia that someone – somewhere – knew what was going on, she found it excruciatingly difficult to concentrate on the task at hand. Four times, CSE had to remind her to adjust the tension on her hydrospanner – she'd been kneeling down driving at a bolt, lost in her own thoughts, entirely unaware that she was making absolutely no progress in unscrewing it. She growled a begrudging thanks to the little repair droid as she made the correct adjustments, and got back to work. The sooner this was over with, Talia mused, the better.

Another hour and a half later, Talia ran a diagnostics on the newly-installed motivator from Freddy's junkpile. The response was all positive. 'How long will it take to get this reinstalled in the _Angel_?' she asked CSE. The little repair droid paused, whirring and whining as he ran the calculations through his computing.

'To successfully integrate this Class-4 Hyperdrive Generator with the _Bastion Angel's_ illegally modified sublight engines, I estimate an installation time of three standard hours.'

Talia sighed deeply, and patted the droid on one spindly shoulder, and instructed it in a heavy tone to get to work. She felt tired; the hard night and no sleep was catching up to her now. She unzipped a pocket on her trousers and removed a hand-rolled t'bac cigarette from it, popping it between her teeth before marching out of the spaceport and back into the bustling street outside.

Across from the loading bay, three child slaves – a rodian, a chagrian and a human girl – kicked a ball around, giggling and laughing at their own private jokes. From a second-story apartment a middle-aged human woman watched them from the balcony, having a conversation in Huttese with somebody out of sight in the apartment behind her. Itinerants, merchants, spacers and slummies of every race and sex slinked past in a throng, the sad and downtrodden underclass of Nar Shadaa. Patting about her pockets, Talia swore when she realised she didn't have a lighter, turning around to go back into the port...but stopping short when a small blue flame materialised inches away from her cigarette.

'Need a light, human?' a voice growled at her in Huttese. Talia stared into the three black eyes of the gran who stood before her, blaster pistol aimed lazily at her stomach. He was the same bounty hunter who had fetched her for Desaa the Hutt the previous night. All of a sudden Talia's senses were on fire; colours seemed brighter and time seemed to slow down. There was nothing – not the whirr of CSE behind the wall working on the _Angel_'s hyperdrive, not the throng of locals milling past. Just her, and the gran, and the gun, and the flame. She thought, though she must have been imagining it, that she could hear the beating of his heart and even hear a whisper of the thoughts running through his head. _He knew_, was all that she could think. Or rather, Desaa the Hutt knew. She knew what Talia and Jana were up to, and had sent the gran back to protect her investment. Talia gulped. There'd be no talking her way out of this one.

'Much obliged,' was what she said to the alien's face, leaning in lightly to kiss the flame with the tip of her cigarette. She sucked down a lungful of smoke, exhaling slowly, calmly. 'See, you may look like a kriffing bantha's asshole, but you're beautiful on the inside, and that's what counts.'

The gran sneered at her with his goat's snout. 'Funny, human. Funny. You can laugh it up with Desaa the Hutt as you explain to her what exactly you and your friend are doing stockpiling your ship for a long-haul cruise.'

'Stockpiling?' Talia raised an eyebrow, taking another drag from her cigarette. 'I'm repairing my hyperdrive motivator. I've a friend using the warehouse to store some of her things while she's moving apartments, but...'

'_Save it_, Sa'Ran!' the bounty hunter snapped, and Talia thought she could feel his anger flare. It was like the kiss from a warm fireplace on her face. It churned her stomach with a mxture of abject fear and..._something else_. He raised his weapon so that it was aimed at her chest. 'You're coming back with me. You can explain this all to her.'

Talia's world seemed to slow down around her.

She could hear the gran's heart, pounding in her ears now, so loud she could no longer deny that she was hearing it. _How was that even possible_? She could feel him, his presence, all around her, intoxicating, feel the malice and the contempt and the calculating emptiness of his soul. She didn't understand it, but she knew it all implicitly, as if she was simply identifying her own emotions. She felt the cold steel of the pistol he had aimed at her, felt the tension on the trigger as his finger rested on it. It felt cold, and rough, and powerful in his hand...somehow, she knew all this. She knew what the gun felt like, how it weighed in his palm, the texture of the grip. One squeeze, and it would all be over. One squeeze, and she'd be free.

Her hand moved on instinct.

One second she was nearly incapacitated, overwhelmed with the sensations she was feeling all around her, the next, she was stretching out her hand, eyes burning into the gran's face. A horrible, tingling sensation ran down the length of her arm into her fingertips, into her palm, and seemed to leap out of her, like a roaring animal, towards the bounty hunter. The pistol in his hand flew from his grasp, dashing through the air seemingly of its own accord, and collided with Talia's outstretched hand. She was so stunned by what had just happened, she closed her fingers too late, and the weapon fell harmlessly to the floor in front of her feet, where it landed with a dull thud.

She looked down at it, and then back up at the gran. His eyes had, if it were even possible, gone wide with shock and – she could certainly feel _this_ emotion heavy in the air around her – _fear_. It was all around her, oozing off of him like Jana's pheromones. She could feel it on her skin; taste it on the tip of her tongue. And the more she felt, the more confident she became. The stronger she knew she was. She couldn't describe it, but his fear was, in some way, sustaining her. She took a step forwards, putting one foot in front of the pistol to block it from the bounty hunter, and stared him down.

'You...' he croaked in Huttese, '...you can't...it's not possible...'

Ignoring his gibberish, Talia knelt down slowly and lifted the pistol up, disengaging the safety and pointing it squarely at the gran's contorted features. She couldn't explain the feelings she was getting; the alien's fear was like a fire burning inside her. Her senses had become razor sharp; she could hear, smell and feel everything and everyone around her, like some apex predator on the hunt. The grip of the pistol felt cool and powerful in her hand; it felt right. She steadied her aim, and spoke slowly.

'How did Desaa the Hutt know to send you over here?' that was the question that spilled out of her lips, almost entirely without her command. But she was satisfied; it sounded like a good question, something the detective would ask the criminal in one of the crime show vids Sevek had liked to watch (_Sevek_...). 'Who tipped her off?' Before the gran opened his mouth, Talia knew what was on his mind. Somehow, she knew it. 'Freddy...' she whispered, and the look on the gran's face told her all she needed to know.

In that second, the events of the previous day all caught up to her. Her brutal fate at the hands of Desaa the Hutt; Sevek leaving her, alone and forsaken; the fear and doubt of racing into the unknown with her best friend; forsaking her father's business she had worked so hard to keep afloat; and potentially never seeing her brother Jett again...

It was too much. Talia let out a cry that started off as a low moan, and gradually grew and grew until it became a high-pitched scream. Passersby stopped to see what all the commotion was, and the gran raised his hands to his ears, wincing slightly. Talia could only see red. Inside, she could feel pure emotion, like a scorching hot flame of hatred and anger that had finally exploded, and boiled over. She wasn't even thinking when she pulled the trigger; she just did it, acting on impulse or – no – that feeling, that sensation, this wonderful new feeling of _power_ that had overtaken her. She shot the gran right through the middle of his three eyes, and he fell to a crumpled mess at her feet. An insane, psychotic laugh escaped from Talia's throat, and she smiled at the life she had just stolen so easily, so deliciously. It was _toxic_. It felt good to kill; good to cry; good to feel. And she knew where she could feel _more_.

Freddy's face fell when he saw Talia striding up to him. He didn't even see the gun – she'd secreted it under her shirt as she walked away from the scene of the shooting, towards the entrance to the Lower Zanshi Markets.

'Tali...' he barely managed a whisper. Talia knew – somehow she _knew_ – that he could feel the heat and the malice and the _hatred_ billowing off her like some infernal aura. He backed away as she pushed into his storefront. 'Tali, I didn't mean to get you into any trouble...I was watching out for my investment...'

'_Shut up!_' Talia shouted, but in her head she purred _Yes, fear me, hate me, _feed _me_. Freddy's horror at her open malevolence was even more intoxicating and addling than the bounty hunter's. She was drunk on his terror and her newfound power. 'You kriffing traitor! You sold me out to Desaa the Hutt!'

'I didn't...I wasn't...' Freddy stammered for the words to say. 'I thought...I thought you were up to something...I wanted to make sure you didn't abscond without settling our debt...it was nothing personal; just business!'

Talia roared. It was a roar unlike anything that had ever escaped her mouth before; not in anger or not in lust. Freddy backed away against the far wall, but it was no use. Her roar continued; loud and explosive and as fierce and all-consuming as the fire that raged in her heart. She felt her muscles rippling with tension, her veins flood with pure adrenaline. The world around her suddenly seemed fickle, temporary, shallow...she could break it if she just puffed up her cheeks and blew. She did so. She roared louder.

The very walls of Freddy's shop began to quake. Bits of junk, sheets of scrap metal and half-completed droid parts rattled on their shelves and fell, crumpling mid-fall and landing with a crash on the floor twisted unrecognisably out of shape. Freddy stared around in horror at the havoc being wrought by the young girl in front of him, shrinking away from her until he was sat in the far corner, hands covering his eyes.

He was pathetic! Talia could not believe she had ever felt close to the snivelling, grovelling whelp before her. He'd been like a father to her! It was disgusting. His weakness and cowardice only enraged her more, and, finally, unleashing all the pent up emotion of the past two days, she directed it at the cowering besalisk.

Freddy's eyes grew wide as Talia cut off the oxygen from his lungs. He fell forwards onto his knees, two of his hands propping him up while the other two clutched desperately at his throat. He looked up at her as she took slow, deliberate steps towards him. As she drew closer, Freddy seemed to become more desperate; hands scratching frantically at his throat as his windpipe was slowly crushed.

He wheezed, opening his mouth and trying to suck in a lungful of stale, undercity air, but nothing came. Talia was standing over him now, breathing heavily, drinking in his pain, his suffering, his fear. The sensation coursing through every inch of her body was like nothing she had ever felt before. Even at his most virile, Sevek had never managed to make her feel this good. She watched with a sick smile spreading across her face as Freddy's nails finally drew blood, cutting into his neck in a horrifying vain attempt to alleviate the pressure...

Then the alien gave a last, terrible spasm, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He gave a sound in between a snort and a choke, and collapsed under his own weight. He lay on the floor, drool sliding sickeningly out of his open mouth and under the metal grating.

Talia sucked in a deep breath, feeling all at once exhausted, sweaty and lightheaded; the rapid cool-down after an orgasm of hatred and anger. Then she realised what she had done. The questions came racing at her; what the Hell had just happened? How had she done any of this? How _could_ she harm Freddy?

What in the universe _was she_?

Talia Sa'Ran fell to her knees, staring blindly at her own hands, and started to weep bitterly in great, heaving, heart-wrenching sobs.


	4. Chapter 4

This one's a little shorter than usual, partly because I'm toying with the idea of jumping the story forwards in time for the next chapter and so didn't have anywhere to take it beyond the ending. Hope you guys like it and, as ever, any feedback would be really appreciated :) Thanks!

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**CHAPTER FOUR**

"**Escape from Nar Shadaa"**

No stars twinkled over the skyline of Zanshi District. Tall, twisted skyscrapers raked the sky like vengeful fingers clawing their way to freedom. Neon lights blazed with sickly, unnatural pink, green and baby blue light over the chassis of passing speeders zooming along in their skylanes. The air was thick and humid with the scent of a decaying city; death and sewage and sewage and death. It was rank in the atmosphere, pungent and devastating to the nostrils. Talia Sa'Ran didn't even notice; for Talia Sa'Ran it had always been home.

She stood by the window, gazing listlessly out at the darkening sky outside. She held a glass of Corellian ale in her hand – her third in half an hour. To stop the shakes, she'd told Jana.

In fact, she'd told Jana everything.

They'd found her there – two Hutt enforcers who made the rounds in the undercity, who had arrived at the marketplace ten minutes after her confrontation with Freddy – on her knees, crying in front of Freddy's crushed and broken body. There were no visible wounds on the besalisk dealer's body, and the weapon Talia had on her was secreted about her person – on a judgement call, based on eyewitness reports from other vendors in the market, who had seen the argument, the enforcers decided that Freddy had died of a heart attack.

'Hell hath no fury, eh?' one of them, a fat devarorian, remarked with a sly grin to his partner as they lifted Freddy's robust frame onto a gurney. They told Talia it was alright, she could go home – there'd been no crime here. Those two, Talia figured now, were obviously low down in the food chain – they didn't recognise her or the fact that Desaa the Hutt likely had a bounty out on her head.

Jana had found her in the apartment a half-hour later, hair wet from a cleansing shower she'd had to try and scrub the imaginary blood from underneath her fingernails, knees drawn up to her chest, still sobbing. She'd told her everything then. The bounty hunter, the rush of anger and passion and heat and power, drinking in the horror in his eyes before she shot him, the confrontation with Freddy, making the walls bend to her will around her, crushing the life out of him with nothing more than a stare...

Talia had already thrown up when she got home; not for the killings she had committed in blind fury, but for the _joy_ and _pleasure_ she had taken in them. That's what sickened her the most. And now, reliving it all to Jana, she'd felt a spark of pleasure again, and it set her off, crying inconsolably, leaving Jana horrified and disgusted and confused at the other end of the couch, unable to sort her own emotions from Talia's with her race's powers of empathy.

After ten minutes, she'd calmed down again, enough to finish off her story. Jana had remained quiet for a little while, thinking deeply, until, at last, she whispered, 'Tali...you don't think you have, like..._powers_, do you...?'

Talia looked up at her, her eyes prettily reflecting the light from the neon sign outside, a hot pink that matched her skin and hair. Talia swallowed. She'd heard tales of the warrior-monks of the Republic, the Jedi, who it was said could accomplish impossible feats, like pushing objects out of their path with a wave of the hand, or jump meters into the air or even read somebody's mind. She shook her head. She couldn't do any of that; it just _happened_ with her, as it had with the alien in the alley the night before. When she was angry or scared or...Talia shivered. She didn't know what any of it meant.

'Maybe...' Jana's mild telepathy allowed her to read Talia's thoughts, '...this is how it manifests itself? I mean it has to show up somehow, right, or how would anybody ever know you had powers?'

'I don't _want_ these powers...' Talia sobbed, '...I just want to be...Talia.'

Jana leaned forwards, and kissed her on the cheek. It was warm and soft and nice, and Talia felt a flutter of life come back to her heart. Maybe it was the zeltron's pheromones, trying to soothe her, but she didn't mind. It did the trick.

Now, standing at the window, clutching her drink to her chest, Talia sensed something at the door. She couldn't explain it; since the confrontation with Freddy, everything had seemed sharper. Her vision, her senses, her situational awareness...it was as if she could feel the pulse of life in the city all around her, like a low hum, calling out to her, offering itself to her. She ignored the feeling of hunger in her belly that wanted to leave to explore, to feel the beating heart of life up close, to revel in it...

'Come in,' she said, not waiting for the person at the door to announce themselves. It was CSE.

'Mistress Talia ma'am, the hyperdrive has been successfully installed and integrated with the _Bastion Angel_'s systems,' he said to Talia's back, who had not turned to acknowledge the droid. 'Also, Mistress Jana wanted me to inform you that...uh...that are some rather shady individuals outside the spaceport, asking for you both.'

Talia snapped her head around to look at the droid. It seemed to wither under her glare. 'I don't need the colour commentary,' she snapped, 'who's out there?' She began to make her way to the door. She had upgraded CSE's language facilities with that of a protocol droid she had salvaged from the back of Freddy's shop years prior; as a result he was capable of adjusting his syntax to accommodate artificial emotions and reflect external conditions. It also gave him something of a reticent attitude; the over-politeness all protocol droids were programmed with to compensate for lack of empathy.

'I don't know, ma'am,' he said as she pushed passed him and started to descend the stairs to the landing zone, 'if I was to guess, I would say that they were Hutt enforcers.' Talia paused at the door out. She shut her eyes slowly, cold beads of sweat forming on her brow, then stepped outside. Jana was standing by the distended entrance ramp to the _Angel_, a look of terror on her face. This time, Talia didn't enjoy it.

'They're calling for you...' Jana's voice was barely an audible whisper, '...they're saying your debts with Desaa the Hutt have been pulled. They're taking you to her right now, or else...' she swallowed, '...or else they said they're..._coming in_.'

Talia put a reassuring arm on her friend's shoulder, then turned to CSE, who had waddled his way down to the port after them. 'Are we able to fly?' she asked.

'Uh, yes, mistress Talia ma'am, but I'd recommend a short-haul test flight before putting it through its paces, some of the equipment you've installed is quite old...'

'Jana,' Talia cut off the little droid, 'get on board and fire up the _Angel_'s engines. We're leaving.' She didn't have to ask twice. Jana nodded and quickly ascended the ramp, disappearing as she was swallowed up by the _Bastion Angel_'s belly. Talia's pistol stirred nervously under her shirt, cold and hard against the soft skin of her belly. She turned to CSE.

'I guess this is goodbye, old friend,' she said with a genuinely sorrowful smile. 'Make sure you don't get into too much trouble without me.'

'I assure you, I don't plan to go looking for any sort of trouble at all,' was CSE's response, before Talia gave her childhood home one last, wistful look, and then followed Jana up the ramp into the starship.

The interior of the _Bastion Angel_ was cramped and Spartan; most of its giant bulk was taken up by the cargo bay, leaving only a small rec area with two couches and a cockpit for the crew. Jana was at the control panel at the front of the ship, staring out over the low spaceport wall at the mob of bounty hunters and Hutt enforcers that had congregated outside the loading bay doors. Talia could sense her nervousness as she took a seat in the chair next to her.

'I've never flown before,' Jana croaked hoarsely, by way of apology for not having anything ready. 'Let alone piloted my own starship...'

'Hey, it's okay,' Talia tried to soothe her friend, 'you're doing great. Just relax. It's nearly over.' The ignition was in the form of a key-like plug connected to the control panel by a coil of rubber-insulated wire. Talia popped open the plastic covering that kept it tidy and unhitched it, clicking it into the socket in the middle of the dashboard and twisting to lock it in place. She reached to the panel over her heard and flicked a few switches into the 'On' position, then pulled back the large flat lever overhead until it clicked into place. There was a whirring sound as the ship's power generator kicked into place, and the control panel lit up, screens and readouts flashing into life. Talia heard Jana gasped, and smiled to herself. The little zeltron was so cute when she was experiencing something exciting for the first time – her first space voyage certainly counted. Talia clicked the mixer switch into place, and the ship gave a happy growl as the engines blazed into life. Automatically, Talia rattled off her pre-flight checks out loud, as her father had taught her and Jett to do.

'Thrusters, check,' she shouted out confidently over the roar of the engines, 'sublight engines, check, hyperdrive...' she paid special attention to the readouts for the newly-installed Class-4, '...responding. Life-support, check. Cabin pressurisation...?' She phrased the last item as a question, looking over to Jana, who shook her head nervously. Talia smiled disarmingly at her. 'Don't worry; it's that readout there by your left arm. No, the other one. Yeah. Just tell me what it says.'

'Umm...' Jana leaned in to see it better, '...Optimum, it says here.'

'Perfect. Aaand...' Talia flicked a few more switches and checked the last few systems. 'Communications five-by-five, hull integrity okay, power at maximum. Okay.' Talia settled back into her seat, relaxing now with the powerful vibrations of the engines shaking the seat underneath her, fingers closing around the familiar joysticks. She was back in her element. Nothing could hurt her in the cockpit of the _Bastion Angel_. 'Board is green,' she declared, 'we're cleared for takeoff!'

She gunned the vertical thrusters, and the _Angel_ powered upwards off the solid ground of Nar Shadaa, lifting into the air. 'Whoa...' Talia heard Jana breath next to her as the slight zeltron gripped the edge of her seat. This was her first flight; _nobody_ enjoyed their first flight.

There was a sudden flash of red and a rumbling that knocked the starship off its trajectory, slowly climbing into the sky. Jana fell forward, hands saving her from smashing her forehead into the control panel just in time. 'What was that?' she asked fretfully.

'One of Desaa's goons just took a shot at us,' Talia spat through gritted teeth, one hand trying to hold the ship steady and the other clicking the auxiliary power switches to the on position. Seeing Jana glance fearfully at her from the corner of her eye, Talia added, 'don't worry, our hull's thick as a rancor's skull. They can't hurt us from down there with those little pea shooters.'

Finally, the _Angel_ rose up over the crest of the spaceport and climbed higher than the commuter skylane; at effective altitude for sublight flight, leaving the Hutt men on the street far below. Talia switched from vertical thrusters to the sublight engine. 'Jan, you see that small lever next to the planetary altimeter? Yep, that one. Could you pull it up please?' Jana did so, and there was a whirring sound as the _Bastion Angel_'s stabilisers retracted and lifted into its belly, streamlining the ship for atmospheric flight. Once the control panel bleeped to indicate the action had been completed, Talia thrust the throttle forwards, gunning the sublight engine and blasting the _Angel_ out of Nar Shadaa's atmosphere.

The cockpit's viewport was bathed in an other-worldly orange glow as flames licked at the hull and cast a bright yellow glow around the cabin. Jana's eyes were wide as she took in the sights and the sounds as the _Angel_ smashed through the sound barrier and carried on, up, up, up through Nar Shadaa's atmosphere and away from the place Talia had called home her entire life. There was one final bang, that popped the pressure in the girls' ears, and the bright lights vanished, the light pollution from the great city disappeared and all became silent, and empty, and cold.

Talia and Jana found themselves staring at the vast expanse of space, highlighted by billions of pinpricks of light all around infinitely for every direction. Each one a star; each one a system with its own planets, and colonies, and cities, and people. Each one an untapped well of infinite opportunity.

Talia relaxed, releasing her grip on the joysticks and engaging the aileron stabiliser. Now, even without her at the helm, the _Angel_ would steady itself and maintain its present course. She turned to Jana.

'It just struck me that we don't even know what our destination is,' she said with a barking laugh, the adrenaline of their sudden and rapid escape slowly wearing off. Jana, who had by now recovered a little from the daze of the G-force on their rapid breaking of atmo, let a girlish smile cross her face. She climbed out of her seat and went to the back.

'I think I've got that covered.'

Talia stood up and followed her to where she was kneeling by a rucksack, rooting in it. At length, she produced a laminated, rolled up star chart, which she spread out over one of the couches. 'It's a star chart of Wildspace,' Jana chirped proudly. 'I got it off a smuggler just before coming back to the port...I'd have told you about it, only...' her tone grew darker, '...you had your own troubles...'

Talia swallowed hard, trying not to deal with what had happened only a few hours ago. She instead focused on the issue at hand. She picked up the chart and studied it. Sure enough, it showed active hyperlanes into the mostly-unmapped region of Wildspace. Talia whistled. 'This must have set you back quite a lot...' she commented. 'How did you pay for it?'

'Pay?' Jana giggled. 'We zeltron have our ways,' she said with a suggestive wink. Talia smirked at her lifelong friend, and shook her head in mock disgust. If it gave them a destination as far away from Hutt space as possible, it made no different to her how Jana had gone about acquiring it. She stared with interest down at the chart. She had never seen an attempt to map Wildspace before; it was a whole new frontier, the uncivilised border of the Unknown Regions. Far beyond the reach of the Hutt cartels – even the Republic had no presence out that far. Talia gulped. Jana may have just won them their freedom.

'What's this, here?' Talia highlighted a star system with her index finger; Jana leaned in to have a look. 'That marking...its standard ordnance for a frontier colony...'

'What's that?' Jana asked curiously.

'It means it's a brand new colony, not even recognised by a corporation or colonial administration yet,' Talia looked up to meet her friend's eyes, 'a fresh start.' Jana beamed.

'I can't believe that we're actually doing this,' she purred.

'Me neither...' Talia replied absently as she gazed at the chart, trying to work out the route to get there. She cursed.

'What's wrong?' Jana asked, her voice faltering a little.'

'Look...' Talia gestured to the chart to explain what she was saying. 'This is the hyperlane the settlers must have used – it links the colony world with the Corellian trade spine. See that? That's a sun gone supernova – it's caused the hyperlane to collapse in on itself. It's no longer possible to get there in a single jump; and because of that cluster of stars _there_...' Talia bit her bottom lip. It was going to be more difficult than she'd initially feared to reach that frontier world.

She was wrenched from her thoughts by a sudden high pitched and rapid-fire klaxon from the control panel.

'What's that?' Jana asked, and Talia felt a surge of anger rise in her gut. She crossed the cabin back over to the panel, where a small red light was flashing desperately.

'Proximity alert,' Talia hissed, 'we're being followed!' She checked the short-range scanner readout. 'Kriffing Hutt starfighters! They're really not giving up without a fight.'

'Does this thing have any weapons?' Jana cried, strapping herself into the co-pilot's chair next to Talia.

'What, on a freighter? This isn't a damn...' there was a loud explosion, and the ship was rocked violently by what Talia knew instinctively was a laser blast. The Hutts weren't taking any chances. '...Republic Navy frigate, Jan.' She swore under her breath. 'Angle the rear reflector shields or we won't survive another hit.'

'_What_?'

'Angle the r—nevermind...' Talia leaned over Jana, one hand still on the joystick, and clicked a switch downwards. The next two laser bolts bounced off the rear of the ship, flinging themselves harmlessly into the empty void of space.

'Can't you get us out of here?' Jana sounded frantic.

'I'm trying!' Talia replied, reaching up to the hyperdrive controls and clicking the master ignition switch. The panel above their heads blazed into life, dozens of coloured buttons and switches all to control the hyperdrive system she and CSE had installed earlier. 'You can't be too careful with calculating a jump to lightspeed, I don't wanna slam into anything that...' the ship was rocked by another loud blast from behind them. The Hutt fighters were getting closer. 'Hand me that star chart!' Talia snapped, 'I need to know where we're going!'

'O-okay...' Jana unsnapped herself nervously from her seat and climbed gingerly into the back to fetch the star chart that had been abandoned when the alert had gone off. She returned moments later and handed it to Talia, who splayed it out over the top of the dashboard. She studied it intently.

Direct access to the system they had decided on was impossible; they were going to have to make a series of minute lightspeed jumps to navigate the maze of the cluster of stars that cut off the system from the rest of Wildspace. So jumping straight into the sector was a no-go, at least for now. The Corellian trade spine, on the other hand...

Talia clicked her tongue against her teeth as she studied the chart, trying to work out the safest and quickest hyperspace lane from Nal Hutta to the trade route. There was another explosion from behind, and another klaxon began to sound – a shield integrity warning. Jana began to panic.

'Tali! Come on! Hurry up!'

'_Quiet_, Jan!' Talia shouted, slowly lifting a hand up to the navicomputer imbedded in the hyperdrive controls. She did the first few rudimentary calculations in her head, then used the navicomputer to make the rest of them, where the distances and timings and power fluctuations had to be exact to within a millionth of a decimal. There came another explosion, and now, when the warnings sounded, the entire cockpit pulsed in a rhythmic, blood red light. The alarms on the control panel screamed at Talia; Jana screamed at Talia; Talia's racing heart screamed at her. She hit the 'Enter' key on the navicomputer, and it beeped to confirm that it had accepted her formula.

It was now or never.

Tali reached forwards, past the throttle for the sublight engines, and to the lightspeed ignition lever. She shut her eyes, acutely aware of the beads of sweat on her forehead, rolling slowly down the side of her face. She took in a deep breath.

Now, she thought, to freedom; to destiny.

She punched it.

The stars around the _Bastion Angel_ bled together into streaks of light, and the starship zipped forwards into oblivion.


	5. Chapter 5

Admittedly, this is less a full-chapter and more an interlude - I wanted to cover a large amount of time very quickly, so that's why this chapter will read differently to previous ones and ones still to come. I hope the format for this chapter isn't too jarring; I needed to "reset" the story a little bit to prepare for the events that are to take place next...which will, FINALLY, push Talia to her true destiny as a Dark Lord of the Sith ;) As ever, I'd appreciate any comments and feedback :) Thanks guys.

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**CHAPTER FIVE**

"**The New Normal"**

Talia Sa'Ran sat splayed out on the crest of the hill, smiling gently as the golden sunlight warmed her face. From here she could see the entire camp, a stainless steel and plastic monument to progress carved out of the thick forest of Hyburn's solitary moon. The laughter of children rang through the air as the camp's young ran and played after the day's lessons. It was the height of summer on the moon now, but the heat was clean and pleasant – not like the sweltering greenhouse effect of Nar Shadaa that Talia had been used to all her life. The grass around her swayed in the gentle wind which whispered through the trees, tickling her bare feet. Somewhere, there was the sound of trickling water from a nearby stream, permeating the air with trancelike delicacy.

She was relaxing after having spend all morning in the gulch, cutting down timber with hand axes to power the camp's sole generator. They lived simply out here on the frontier; with no corporate recognition as of yet, there were no monthly care packages from the Core Worlds to give them food, supplies, fuel and technology. That meant they hunted their own food and lived off the most rudimentary of machines. There wasn't a single droid in the entire camp of nearly two score families. But Talia loved it. To her, this was the life – at one with nature, every day a struggle to survive in an unfamiliar environment, nothing binding the locals together but trust, companionship and practical necessity. None of the back-alley politics and half-truths and violence of Nar Shadaa. For the first time in her life, Talia had come to admit, she felt in control of her own destiny.

The girls had been on the forest moon of Hyburn for six standard months. Their arrival – and the surplus supplies it precipitated – had been greatly welcomed by the fledgling colony. It was a friendly atmosphere in the camp; a cosmopolitan community flung together from all corners of the galaxy. The camp's elder, and the man whom the other colonists looked up to, was a giant of a human named Herec Osmun. With a mane of shaggy brown hair and a thick beard, he looked every bit a brother to the cathar who he had established the colony with – Jar Dara. Talia had never seen a cathar before; the giant, bipedial lion-like aliens native to the Cathar system. He looked quite fierce, with his feline features and two great tusks, body covered head to foot in well-groomed golden fur, but he, like his lifelong friend Herec, was a gentleman of the first order. All the colonists looked up to them, and in time, Talia and Jana had learned to as well.

Jana had fit in quite comfortably with the locals – faster, it could be said, than Talia. The camp children loved her – many of them had never seen a zeltron before, let alone one with such bright and perfect pink skin and hair. She had quickly become a subject of amazement amongst the camp's young, and, being of a naturally outgoing and fun-loving temperament, Jana was only too happy to oblige the children by answering their questions and playing with them. In fact, as much as the children loved Jana, it could be said that the women of the camp despised her in equal measure. Some of them had husbands, some were in the midst of burgeoning relationships and others still were single, playing the game of cat and mouse with the other single men of the camp in search of a prospective mate. Jana's presence threw a spanner in the works, for everyone. The zeltron were not only famed for their ability to seduce and influence others, but, in being one of the most pleasure-seeking and aesthetically beautiful species in the galaxy, Jana attracted the attention of not a small amount of male suitors. The zeltron were noted for their hedonism; and Jana's youthful good looks and perfect figure made her the subject of envy for many of the camp's female _and_ male population alike. She had, however, quickly settled into a steady-going relationship with Lar Onum, a handsome, well-built vultan who chopped trees in the gulch with Talia every morning. The three had become fast friends over their months together in the colony.

In a colony such as this, everybody pulled their own weight – establishing a growing population was only half the battle; it was all for nought if there was no functioning society to benefit from it. So while Talia and Lar left camp at the crack of dawn every morning to cut fuel for the generator, Jana found work with the camp's sole physician, a blue-skinned twi'lek named Dr. Adran Chann. Though she had no formal medical training, Dr. Chann had realised soon after the girls' arrival at camp that Jana's natural affinity for telepathy and empathy was invaluable in dealing with patients who found it hard to explain just what was ailing them – especially children, who trusted their beloved zeltron friend implicitly to begin with. Jana was, of course, sworn to doctor-patient confidentiality, but it didn't stop her telling Talia that _someone's husband_ had been having a bit of trouble in the bedroom. She would never mention any names, but her descriptions were so vivid that Talia always guessed in the end. It was all Talia and Jana could do not to fall about themselves in fits of giggles whenever a patient with a humiliating ailment walked past them in the thoroughfare.

In six months, Talia hadn't thought about the horrifying chain of events that had led her to flee Nar Shadaa and abandon the life she had known for so long. It all seemed like some bad dream, like none of it could really have happened. She still had the blaster pistol, of course, a horrifying reminder of the two murders that had catalysed her and Jana's escape from the small moon, but after a while she stopped carrying it. This colony was alone on the frontier, alone in the Hyburn Prime star system. When they wanted to hunt, they used rudimentary spears or vibroblades some colonists had brought with them. There was no need for weapons of any other kind. She kept the pistol locked away on the _Bastion Angel_, itself secreted away in a clearing a few miles from the camp. She didn't even go to it anymore. It didn't seem necessary. It was a relic from a past life, one she no longer wanted to remember.

It was the camp's first Founders' Day when Jar made his proposition.

The colony was celebrating its first standard year since establishment, by having a grand feast out underneath the stars in the main thoroughfare of the camp. Everybody was invited, and everybody made a special effort to attend. There was a cornucopia of food that the hunters had been stockpiling for weeks beforehand; gingerbread and Alderaanian soda for the children and spiced rum for the adults (that some of the camp elders had been storing since they first landed on Hyburn). Talia, Jana and Lar had taken their seats next to one another, smacking their lips in anticipation of the feast. The celebration had kicked off with the Chann twins – Ema and Asli – playing a duet on their tri-harps. They had the audience enraptured as they played a melody resplendent with hope and good fortune and mirth, as beautiful to listen to as the twins were themselves. By the time they had finished and stood to bow, Jana was in tears next to Talia. Lar put his arm around her and kissed her. The twins giggled at the uproar of applause from the gathered colonists, and hurried to join their dad, Dr. Chann, who sat beaming proudly at his daughters. After that, Herec gave a quick speech about the camp and the success story of the Hyburnian colony, and toasted the future of the colonists' and their families. After a magnificent fireworks display, they tucked into their meals.

After the banquet – of five full courses – the kids were dispatched to bed, and the adults shared a few drinks as well as stories of their origins prior to arriving on the frontier world. Dr. Chann and his family had moved from the Nightlands of Ryloth in search of an easier life than the harsh Outer Rim world could afford them. He had said that they had tried various other worlds throughout the Mid-Rim, but found them too cramped and overbearing for his liking. The mostly-uncharted frontier of Wildspace had offered the perfect opportunity to be rid of Republic interference, when all he wanted to do was raise his girls in peace and live out his days with his wife, Mara. The conversation continued to go around the table, with everyone telling a bit about themselves and their story. Lar explained his upbringing on Tatooine, a son of spacer parents. Smugglers mostly, they ran afoul of a Hutt crimelord and, one day, didn't return from a run they were making to the Core. Lar had grown up alone amidst a world of petty crime and gangs until, at last, stealing a starship and getting off-world. Three standard years of hitchhiking across the galaxy later, he had settled on Hyburn, determined to leave his past behind him.

After Lar had told his story, Herec's eyes fell to Talia. She tried to make herself very small – her story, though similar in many respects to Lar's, wasn't one she wanted to recount.

'What about you two, Talia, Jana?' he asked them in his silky smooth, gentle voice entirely at odds with his gruff exterior. 'You two are basically part of the family now,' he said with a grin, 'but we know very little about who you were beforehand!' At Herec's urging, the other assembled colonists all nodded and uttered murmurs of agreement; they wanted to hear the girls' stories.

Talia could feel Jana's gaze burning into her. Somehow, Talia knew what Jana was thinking, almost as if she was thinking it herself. This wasn't her zeltron pheromones; this was different, more...innate...the same feelings that had gripped her in her last hours on Nar Shadaa. Jana didn't want anybody here to know she'd been a stripper any more than Talia wanted them to know she'd murdered too people in a rage-fuelled storm of magic. Magic? Had that been it? Talia didn't know. She didn't want to know. And she certainly didn't want anyone here to have any assumptions as to it either.

'We, ahh...' Talia smiled weakly, '...we both grew up on Nar Shadaa,' Talia looked at Jana, trying to reassure her from the flash of panic that crossed the young zeltron's pink face. 'I inherited my father's freight business and Jan was my co-pilot. I guess...' she shrugged, '...I guess I can't really put it down to any one thing, but we decided between ourselves we wanted more from life than just the rat race of business and debt and the monotony of a working day. We wanted to come out and experience life on the frontier, and...' she grinned broadly, '...here we are!'

There were smiles all around as the Hyburnian colonists accepted Talia's lie without a second thought. It had been good, Talia thought to herself; it was wonderfully close to the truth, making it easier to say without giving away any of the tells associated with lying. She was proud of herself and, looking with a quick glance over at Jana, saw that Jana was thankful too.

Shortly after that, couples started peeling off from the gathering, heading home to end the night on a high note. Jana and Lar stayed for a couple of hours more, and then they, too, went back to Lar's dwelling to spend the night with each other. Drinking one last glass of Corellian ale with Herec, Talia excused herself and returned to her favourite spot – on the hill overlooking the camp – to sit and dwell on the drastic change her life had taken.

Jar Dara found her there, gazing silently up at the stars, and sat down next to her. She didn't protest. He was silent for a few moments, watching the stars with her, purring softly in his feline way, and then he spoke.

'They're beautiful, aren't they?' He spoke a heavily-accented form of Galactic Basic that wasn't unpleasant to listen to, unlike the dreadful Huttese-Basic accents of Nar Shadaa and Nal Hutta.

'I never used to see stars planetside before,' Talia replied softly, 'the pollution in Nar Shadaa was so bad you couldn't see the night sky. So to come here after all this time and see this is...breathtaking.'

She..._felt_...the cathar smile next to her, and was strangely comforted by the aura of benevolence she could sense pouring off him. Since the _incident_ on Nar Shadaa, her strange intuition had never quite left her, as if the anger and the hatred she felt in that moment had unlocked something deep inside her, another sense or plane of understanding...she didn't bewail it. In the six months since arriving on Hyburn's moon she'd grown quite used to it, the feeling of casual power bubbling just under the surface of her skin.

'It must get lonely,' Jar said, 'your two friends off together and you out here, by yourself.'

'I don't mind it,' Talia admitted. 'It's nice to have some time to yourself, to reflect on things and meditate a little...'

She sensed Jar's eyes on her. 'You're not at all tired after the day that was in it?' he asked quietly. Talia shook her head, and explained that she was used to working long hours back on Nar Shadaa. Life out on the frontier was less hectic; it didn't tire her out half as much. 'I've got some jawa juice I didn't bring out to the feast back at my place,' Jar said. 'If you're not about to sleep, you're more than welcome to come back and join me for a night-cap.' He put one giant paw on her shoulder, and Talia could sense instinctively his mindset.

She brushed him off gently and stood up. 'I'm...I'm sorry, Jar,' she said quickly, 'I...I'm not exactly in the market, right now. I don't think I've quite registered how things ended with my ex, and...' she inhaled deeply, '...I'd rather not. I'm sorry.' Before the cathar could even respond, she walked briskly down the hill and back towards the camp.

She didn't know what to make of Jar as she stepped into her house and slid into bed. It wasn't that she wasn't fond of him – of course she was, both he and Herec were wonderful men – but he was cathar. She'd dated Sevek, a twi'lek, for many years but...that was different...he was near-human. She didn't even know if humans and cathar were even biologically compatible...not that that made a difference, she reminded herself. Jar was more lion than man; she couldn't possibly...could she?

She lay awake a long time that night thinking about it. She started to wonder what it would be like to have sex with a cathar; that warm fur against her body, those yellow feline eyes gazing longingly into hers, his razor sharp teeth at her neck...she tossed and turned with the images in her head, haunted by them. The cold passage of time since she'd last been with Sevek made her, at least in her own mind, a little more pliable, and before giving way to sleep she gave in to her temptation and pleasured herself, remembering that last encounter with Sevek – and maybe she thought a little bit about Jar, too.

The next morning she found Jar, kissed him on the check, and apologised for the previous night. He did not seem to mind, and she could sense no lying in him, so they breakfasted together before she and Lar headed out to the gulch to cut timber. This, also, is when Lar delivered the news – Jana was pregnant. That evening the three of them got together in Jana's house to celebrate and toast the baby's good health. Jana said she wanted a girl, but Lar was adamant about having a boy – they weren't even sure what the baby would look like. They hadn't taken any precautions together because they'd assumed that zeltron and vultans were incompatible with each other. Apparently not, it seemed.

After such a sudden culmination of events around Founders' Day, between Jar's proposition to her and Jana's pregnancy, the following months were a lot quieter. Talia and Lar continued to work the gulch together and, when her condition precluded her working for long hours, Dr. Chann formally gave Jana leave of absence from his clinic. As Jana's due-date came closer, she began to fret about the health of the baby. She didn't know why; was it sheer terror of being an expectant mother for the first time, or was she telepathically linking with her own unborn child? Whatever it was, Dr. Chann admitted he did not have the necessary equipment to make a pronouncement and put Jana's mind at ease. When Jana asked for a section, to get the process over with and know sooner if everything was okay or not, he admitted that, without a midwifery droid, he didn't want to risk such a delicate procedure. Talia and Lar both promised to stay by Jana's side for the entire labour, and Talia did her best to reassure Jana that all it was was just nerves, and the baby was going to be fine.

In the event, Jana's labour went far better than even Dr. Chann dared hope. For half an hour, Talia held her hand by the bedside while she cried and screamed and moaned, Dr. Chann monitoring her all the while with Lar pacing outside – 'For decorum's sake,' the doctor had explained. When the baby eventually emerged – skin red as a Nar Shadaa sunset and covered in goo – even Jana refused to immediately believe it was already over. But sure enough, as Talia cut the umbilical cord on Dr. Chann's instruction and handed the newborn baby girl to her awestruck mother, Jana's eyes welled up with tears and she snuggled her close. Talia went out to the hallway to call in Lar, and he rushed in, eyes growing wide as saucers upon seeing his new daughter. He kissed Jana, than knelt down next to the bed to coo at his baby girl. Talia stood in awe, her own face split by a beaming grin, moved nearly to tears by how happy the two of them both looked together. The _three_ of them.


	6. Chapter 6

This chapter was dragging me down a little - I wasn't happy with how it was shaping up, linguistically or in terms of plot, so decided to cut it shorter than I intended. My hope is, with the ideas I have in mind for chapter seven, I can start afresh and get back up to a standard I'm satisfied with. For now, hope you enjoy and apologies for cutting this one short, but I'll try to make the next bit worth the wait! (Studying for exams apparently does not lend itself to a healthy writing atmosphere... xD )

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**CHAPTER SIX**

**"Omen**"

A dark pall hung over Hyburn. Talia could sense it.

She had been awoken from feverish dreams of pain and suffering and despair in a cold sweat, and was so haunted by the ghastly visions of malevolence that'd plagued her she'd gotten out of bed in the dead of night rather than risk falling back into their icy stranglehold. There was a cool breeze sweeping the thoroughfare outside, unseasonal for this time of the year. A leaden weight lay heavy in Talia's stomach, like an anchor tugging at her consciousness, one that she could not shake. She went to her sanctuary atop the crest of the nearby hill, but even that offered her no solace against the rising dread in her heart.

It was the week's end, so when the sun crept sleepily into the sky Talia went straight to Jana and Lar's, hoping that friendly company would allay her dark sense of foreboding. She found Jana at the kitchen table, changing baby Tami while cooing and giggling at her. Tami gurgled up at her mother, kicking her little legs in the air and swiping at nothing with her little dots of fists. Talia paused in the doorway, and smiled despite herself. Jana shone with the glow of motherhood, imbued by a completeness that Lar and Tami had given her. Jana noticed Talia hovering around the doorway, and she grinned, and invited her in. The girls embraced one another and kissed, and Talia turned to Tami to tickle her belly and talk nonsense at her. Tami laughed, quite familiar with Talia at this stage, and rolled over. Jana rolled her onto her back so she could finish changing her, then picked her up and carted her over to her highchair, where she placed her and started mixing up some baby food in the blender.

As she turned her attention away from her daughter, the light on Jana's face died, and from across the room Talia could sense the storm that had afflicted her thoughts. Jana swayed where she stood, and put a hand to her forehead, leaning back against the kitchen counter for support. Before Talia could ask her what was wrong, Jana's eyes flicked up to meet hers, her face a visage of terror.

'Is it your..._power_...?' Jana whispered the last word, as if scared someone might overhear them. Talia swallowed hard, and took a seat at the table adjacent to Tami. She nodded slowly. It was the only explanation she could offer for the fear and foreboding churning in her gut, that poor Jana's telepathic empathy had no doubt picked up on the moment her thoughts shifted from the baby.

The mysterious power that had gripped her so utterly in Nar Shadaa and had, to a far lesser extent, stuck with her all this time on Hyburn's moon was the only explanation for what she was feeling...what she had dreamt. She leaned forwards, and put her head in her hands.

'I can't shake the feeling that...something's about to happen...' Talia croaked, not looking up. 'Something bad.'

She felt Jana move across the room, and looked up just in time to see the troubled-looking zeltron lift her baby out of her highchair, and hold her close to her chest. Protecting her. From _Talia_.

'Jan...' Talia shook her head, '...what are you...I'm not going to...!'

'Tali...' Jana sucked in a deep breath, '...I think you need to talk to Herec.'

'What?'

'You...you _killed_ two people because of this...this _thing_...and now it's coming back...'

'It's not the same—'

'_Don't_, Tali!' Jana snapped. Tami began to whinge, sensing the discord in the room. 'I can feel what you're feeling, remember that. There's something..._dark_...inside of you. You need to talk to Herec. He needs to know. The _colony_ needs to know. So we can help you.' As Tami began to cry, Jana went quiet for a moment, focusing her attentions on the baby. The room was filled with a sweet smell that Talia recognised as Jana's pheromones, and Tami, almost immediately, calmed down in her mother's arms. Jana turned her attention back to Talia. 'You need to explain it to him,' Jana urged, 'and to Dr. Chann. They'll be able to help you. They'll know what to do.'

Talia's instinctive reaction was to protest, to lash out at Jana, but she stopped herself. Maybe her best friend was right; keeping quiet about what had happened clearly wasn't working. The _beast_ within her was still there, still desperate to get out. Maybe it was best to seek advice from someone else – maybe Herec or Dr. Chann _would_ have the answers. As Jana felt Talia's rapid change of heart, her expression softened, and she crossed back over to her. Talia sensed her mood and stood up, and embraced her, wrapping her arms around her and the baby and hugging them both close.

'I love you, Tali...' Jana sobbed, and Talia replied by kissing her cheek, then kissing the top of Tami's head, lingering for a moment as she thought.

'I'll go to Herec,' Talia said softly, 'and I'll tell him what I've been feeling. Maybe he, or someone else at camp, has heard of someone with a similar disposition.'

She released Jana from her embrace and smiled, staring into her eyes for a few seconds before departing. She bumped into Lar on the way out and had to force a smile to convince him that everything was okay as well as muttering an empty promise to meet them both for dinner later. Waving goodbye to her, Lar went inside to his family while Talia took off down the muddy thoroughfare towards Herec's house.

Ema and Asli Chann were outside, playing with Pollo, Herec's young son, in the garden. They smiled and waved warmly at Talia – knowing her more as 'Jana's friend' than 'Talia' – as Talia walked up to the front door. 'Is your dad here, girls?' Talia inquired curiously, and the twins answered in unison.

'Yeah, he's visiting Mr. Osmun.'

Talia nodded her head. That was interesting. She didn't know Dr. Chann and Herec had a particularly close relationship outside of working hours. She rapped on the door and stood restlessly, quietly willing the aura of misery and despair draped coldly around her to dispel itself so she could turn tail now and not have to talk about this. With _both_ men at the same time.

Before the door opened, Talia could sense Herec approaching it – as time wore on, the mysterious power eating away at her was getting more attuned to the world around her, and she was becoming more adept at reading its subtle, whispered signals. It opened, and the giant lumbering frame of Herec stood in the hallway before her, long hair unkempt and unwashed, eyes wide with surprise.

'Talia Sa'Ran,' he said in shock, 'this is unexpected.'

'Is this a bad time?' Talia asked awkwardly, 'I can come back if...' she gestured towards the twins, '...if you've guests.'

A shadow passed Herec's face, and he glanced around at the street behind Talia nervously before stepping aside for her. 'No. No, it's alright. Come in.'

Talia stepped inside unsurely, her trepidation growing now independently of the dark feeling in her gut. 'What's going on...?'

Herec squeezed past her so that he led the way down the dark inner hallway. 'Come with me, see for yourself.'

Nervously, Talia obeyed, following Herec down a short hallway into a little round room she assumed to be the kitchen. At the table, a cup of something nursed in his hands, Dr. Chann sat with a morose expression on his face. He was not alone; across the room, to the left of Talia and Herec as they entered, a tall and imposing human stood in full military uniform, officer's cap tucked neatly underneath his right arm. Upon seeing Talia enter, he seemed to snap to attention, growing another few inches in height.

Herec cleared his throat awkwardly. 'Talia Sa'Ran, this is...'

'...Republic Army First Lieutenant Edan Corvarn, ma'am.' He flashed a boyish grin and offered a hand. Talia took it, and he squeezed the life out of hers in a crushing handshake.

A million questions exploded through Talia's mind at once, not the least of which was what a Republic Army officer was doing out in Wildspace, on the frontier no less, but at least one was answered – _this_, undoubtedly, was the cause of her misgivings all day. Even still, knowing the source of her discomfit did not necessarily do anything to dispel it. She still felt the malevolent tug of darkness on her heart as she stood meeting the sky-blue eyes of the Republic soldier, the boyish grin not fading from his close-cropped head.

'Lieutenant Corvarn is in charge of a peacekeeping detachment from the Republic deployed to the Ktsun system,' Herec muttered by way of explanation. Talia remembered Ktsun from Jana's star chart; it was a populous system in Wildspace only a few parsecs from Hyburn. Not knowing the political makeup of the system, however, she couldn't guess as to the Republic Army's purpose there. Dr. Chann elected to shed some light on the issue.

'That this sector is outside of the Republic's jurisdiction has not seemed to enter into the good lieutenant's calculations,' he said, and Talia could detect the icy bitterness in his tone. The colonists here were no fans of the Republic.

'The Senate and People of Coruscant may disagree with you on that, doctor,' Corvarn said with a sly wink. Dr. Chann shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, livid at being sassed by a young and overconfident jarhead. Herec moved quickly to disarm the situation.

'Lt. Corvarn's detachment have stopped at Hyburn for refuel and resupply,' he said slowly, 'I've been trying to explain to him that we have nothing of value that could help them.'

'Does the Republic Army not outfit its ships with enough supplies to get to where they're going _without_ having to steal from honest, hard-working folk?' Talia asked coldly.

'The _Navy_ handles logistics, ma'am,' the lieutenant's boyish grin was starting to get on Talia's nerves now. 'I just point and shoot.'

'In any case,' a stressful tone had crept into Herec's voice, 'Talia here is not a camp elder – she arrived little over a year and a half ago. She can attest that the colony is barely self-sufficient. Regardless of our own feelings on this matter; the camp _cannot _physically help you to resupply!' Corvarn raised an eyebrow, and looked to Talia, waiting for her to confirm or deny Herec's assertion.

'He...he's right,' Talia said awkwardly, 'we've barely begun building a surplus for the winter. We have absolutely nothing to offer you.' Despite being flatly denied by the three of them, the lieutenant maintained his grin. He nodded slowly and fixed his cap over his shorn crown.

'I have a sworn duty to the people of the Galactic Republic, Mr. Osmun,' Corvarn said, his voice not losing its deceptive warmth. 'I will uphold that duty, that I can promise you.' He spun on his heel with parade drill precision, nodding curtly to Dr. Chann as he stepped past him and giving Talia a lingering look as he left the kitchen and the house. Talia shuddered. She was used to men staring at her – they had been in certain corners of Nar Shadaa from before she'd even reached adolescence – but the lieutenant's domineering leer left her feeling unclean and vulnerable. When she heard the front door slide shut down the hall, she visibly sagged, giving a sigh of relief.

'We should inform the community,' Dr. Chann said to Herec once they were alone. 'Parents may not want a cohort of frustrated, pent-up marines on shore-leave bulling through the camp.'

Herec nodded slowly, but his attentions were slowly settling on Talia, standing awkwardly between the two camp elders. 'That business can wait a while longer,' he smiled at her, 'what is it you wanted?'

Having ascertained the cause of her foreboding, Talia no longer felt any great desire to share with the camp her secret. She swallowed, immediately realising she had no reason to be at Herec's house, if not to tell him what she'd been feeling. She smiled weakly at him, doing her best to look sheepish.

'It...couldn't have been that important,' she said, biting her bottom lip, 'for the life of me I can't remember what it was.' She twisted to look down the hallway at the front door. 'Do you think army boy is going to just pack up and leave?'

Before she'd even turned her head back, she'd sensed Herec and Dr. Chann exchange a look (...it was getting easier...). Herec shook his head slowly when their eyes finally met. 'I'd rather not sit and postulate over something we'll know soon enough anyway. I'll go find Jar,' he said this to Dr. Chann, 'and we'll consider calling a town meeting.' Talia took this as her cue to leave, and she said her goodbyes to both of them before stepping outside and lighting up a t'bac cigarette.

The sun was already at the midway point in the sky, casting down golden rays over the idyllic camp nestled in the heart of the forest. Talia walked through the thoroughfare with her head bowed low, exhaling the smoke from the cigarette from her mouth and inhaling it back up through her nostrils. She didn't know why the arrival of a Republic ship would be a cause for such concern for her, especially if they were peacekeepers. She smoked down the rest of her cigarette in reflective silence, walking the length of the camp and out through the forest, losing herself in the bright, colourful womb of nature.

She was close now to where Jana and her had landed the _Bastion Angel_, so many months ago. Stopping by a tree to finish off the ends of her cigarette, and reach for another, Talia glanced around her. Something was different about this part of the forest. She sensed something that hadn't been there before, when last she'd checked up on the _Angel_. Stepping out from behind the tree, unlit cigarette hanging loosely from her lips, she swatted her way through the undergrowth to the clearing. As she got closer, the feeling of something being amiss only grew, and grew, until it was practically a searing agony in her heart.

There were voices ahead.

Talia ducked down, gasping with the suddenness of her reflexes. The cigarette fell from her lips to the earthen ground below. She peered through the leaves of a thick bush in at the sun-kissed clearing the _Bastion Angel_ stood proud in, gleaming like diamond in the light. She did not stand alone.

All around her, lazing about in combat armour coloured in the white and red of the Republic, soldiers chatted and smoked and laughed, rifles slung or propped up against one of the _Angel_'s stabilisers. Talia cursed under her breath.

As she watched, one of the Republic soldiers, still wearing his helmet, stepped forwards with what looked to be a fusion cutter. Her eyes went wide as he approached the underbelly of the _Bastion Angel_'s entrance ramp and ordered the men nearby to shield their eyes or get away. Then he engaged the cutter, a bright bluey-white glare burning into her father's ship. Talia could watch no longer.

'Get away from there!' she cried out, stepping out of concealment and walking out into the open, bearing down on the engineer, who'd stopped working to turn around and see what the commotion was. Automatically, the soldiers around her grabbed for their weapons, and she stopped dead, in the middle of almost a dozen rifles trained on her chest and head. Talia remained defiant, her eyes burning into the black visor shielding the engineer's eyes. 'This is my ship, none of you have any right to break into her!'

'Back away, miss...' a soldier approached lowering his rifle, the markings on his shoulder making him out to be a corporal. 'Republic Army business, we don't want any trouble.'

'Well you're going to have trouble if you don't leave my starship alone!' Talia spat, enraged at the soldiers' obnoxiousness and impressed with herself in equal measure. She didn't know where this bravery was coming from.

There was a chorus of collective, mocking 'oo's' from the assembled men. The corporal laughed out of the side of his mouth. 'Are we?' he took a step forwards. His voice had taken on a menacing tone. '_We're_ going to have trouble, are we?'

Talia stood her ground, the rage within her building. She turned away from the engineer now to focus on the corporal. She could feel her heart pounding in her ears, feel the bile in her stomach rising. Adrenaline began to bleed into her blood supply, sharpening her senses. A red mist descended over her field of vision. No longer in control of her actions, a sick smile began to spread itself across Talia's face, and she licked her lips in anticipation. Irrespective of her rational self, her body was already preparing for what was about to happen. The corporal stopped, resting his rifle by his leg. Talia's eyes latched hungrily on to the blaster pistol in the holster on his hip, mere inches away from her grasp. All she had to do was reach out and take it...

'I suggest you get out of here before someone takes you seriously, little girl,' the corporal said with a leer. 'Wouldn't want to get that body of yours broken in before we've all had a shot,' he winked, and in a flash of an instant whipped his free hand around to smack Talia on the ass. She reacted instinctively, headbutting the corporal right in the nose. There was a satisfying crunch, and blood sprayed in all directions, covering both her and the corporal's pristine uniform.

Something hard slammed into the side of her head, and Talia saw stars. She vaguely registered the feeling and the sound of her body hitting the ground as there was a commotion from the rest of the men. The feeling of anger and power that had been building inside her dissipated in an instant. She groaned and closed her eyes, her head throbbing in agony. Something told her that she'd just been brained with a rifle butt, and it had put her down hard. She focused on that sense; that malignant curse that had coursed through her veins since Nar Shadaa, allowing her to know things no other person could possible know. Through it, she heard the voices around her speaking.

'God damn it, I'm alright, leave me be. Finish cracking into that kriffing freighter!' this was the corporal. His command was followed by a resumption of the engineer's fusion cutting into her ship. My poor _Angel_...Talia thought.

'Should we finish this kath-hound off?' There was the sound of a rifle being loaded.

'No, she's a local, we're here on a damn peacekeeping mission.' An ominous pause. 'Set to stun.'

There was a zapping sound, and Talia saw a flash of blue light...

...then everything went dark at once.


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

"**Dark Side of the Moon"**

There was the sound of grating metal, then muffled voices, followed then by distant footsteps fading in and out of earshot. The bench was cold and rough and cruel on her goosepimpled skin. She was shivering, barely able to form a coherent thought, yet shivering. She was cold. More footsteps, closer, and then farther, and then vanished. Evanescent voices again, high-spirited; laughs and shouts. Then silence. Or maybe she'd just faded out again.

Talia came to slowly, her vision a pinprick of blurred light at the end of the tunnel of darkness. She tried to see, but the pain in her head was like a searing knife through her brain, and she groaned and slammed her eyes shut. Her mind went blank, and she slipped out of consciousness again.

There were more voices. Ethereal, transcendent, hollow. For a while she just assumed they were in her head. Then there was the hiss of a door being opened followed by footsteps disappearing into some unseen black distance, and she realised she was awake.

She tried to open her eyes again.

The pinprick of blurred light swayed and shimmered in her field of vision, desperately trying to eat away at the darkness that was clouding her senses. She reached out to it, clawing at it, trying to make it whole. Gradually, sensation returned to her. The bench was cold and rough and cruel on her goosepimpled skin. She was shivering, barely able to form a coherent thought, yet shivering. She was cold. This time there were no more footsteps.

Exhaustion.

She didn't know where it came from. But she gave in to it. Slowly, the pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel flickered and died. There was darkness again.

There were footsteps. Then voices. Then the footsteps died away, and the voices followed. The bench was cold and rough and cruel on her goosepimpled skin. She was shivering, barely able to form a coherent thought, yet shivering. She was cold. But she was awake.

Talia opened her eyes.

The pinprick of blurred light danced and flickered in her field of vision, taunting her, mocking her. She grasped desperately at it, trying to pull it towards her, ignoring the agonising pain in her head. The light began to expand. Her eyelids felt heavy. She ignored that too. She focused on the light. She had to get to it. She would have screamed in frustration if she'd had the energy. She had to get to the blurred light. She had to see.

She reached deep within herself, ignoring the exhaustion and the pain and the apocalyptic lethargy, and forced herself to take control of her body again. Her muscles resisted at first, but then gave in when she proved the more stubborn. She blinked. The darkness retreated. She blinked again. It was only a slight blur now. She blinked a third time.

Her cell was small, 2 metres wide and four long, but brightly lit. Talia forced herself to sit up on the bench. It was cold and rough and cruel on her goosepimpled skin. She stretched, giving an involuntary yawn as she did so. As her ability to reason slowly returned to her, her brain firing into action to keep up with the instinctual movements of her muscles, she was finally able to take stock of her surroundings.

A lexan glass pane separated her cell from the corridor of stainless steel outside. Across the way from her, an identically furbished cell – this one empty – stared back at her like the void of space. She shivered. She must have been in some sort of detention block, but, why...? She racked her brain for an answer. She remembered the _Bastion Angel_, the Republic soldiers gathered around her, trying to splice their way in..._the soldiers_! One of them had smashed her on the temple with his rifle. She didn't remember anything else. Now she was here. Talia pulled her knees up to her chest, trying to warm herself in the uncaring cold grey of her cell. She was scared. That fear translated to more cold, more shivering. She didn't know where she was, and that scared her too.

Some time passed where she wanted to cry, but didn't. She didn't call out either. She didn't know why; maybe she was scared to. She didn't want her jailers to know she was awake. Eventually exhaustion overtook her again, and Talia lay her head down on the metal bench, with only her arm to cushion her. She fell asleep in spite of the cold and the hardness and the fear.

She awoke when she felt the eyes upon her.

She sat up with a start, eyes instantly snapping over to the lexan door that kept her entrapped – standing there, in a well-maintained white-and-red combat uniform, a soldier with rank slides denoting him as a sergeant stood watching her. Talia narrowed her eyes at him.

'What the Hell am I doing here?' she demanded to know, a flash of anger cleansing away the grogginess. She stood up – shakily at first – to confront him through the glass.

The sergeant was quick on the response. 'Ma'am, you're being held as an enemy combatant for attacking a non-commissioned officer of the Republic Army. I am instructed to inform you that as per the _Enemy Combatants_ _Act_, you are shortly to receive trial by military tribunal overseen by the Offcer Commanding Republic Security Forces in Ktsun.'

Talia swayed slightly at the words, hearing them but not quite believing them. It all seemed quite ridiculous. 'What're you talking about?' she said at length, her voice faltering as fear overcame her, 'I'm a colonist from the forest moon of Hyburn, I have nothing to do with the Republic or Ktsun!'

The sergeant's face remained stoic; stubbornly handsome in that way all men in uniform had about them. 'In any case, as per the _Treaty on Prisoners of War_, you shall receive a meal at approximately oh-nine-hundred, Galactic Standard Time. You have been apprised of your rights in this situation, and you may appeal for your release come the tribunal.' Without another word, he spun on his heel and walked away out of sight. There followed the hissing of a door being opened, and his footsteps, like all the others, faded out of earshot. Talia sat back down on the bench, gave a scoffing, disbelieving laugh once, and then buried her head in her hands.

She didn't know how long she sat there, fretting in a state of utter disbelief. It all seemed like some weird dream. Any moment now she was going to wake up in bed and get up to meet Lar in the gulch to chop trees, and then that evening have dinner with Jana and baby Tami. She'd tell them all about this dream, and they'd laugh, and toast the Republic soldiers' good fortune on their mission to Ktsun. Talia lay back down, curling up in a ball and shutting her eyes.

She wanted to wake up now.

She really, really wanted to wake up.

She must have fallen asleep yet again, because her eyes opened with a jolt when the rumble shook the cell. It was a single sensation at first, a kick shaking her out of her slumber, but it was followed immediately by another one, and then a low rumble that vibrated the walls and the bench she was now sitting up on. Understanding came to Talia at once. _She was on a starship_! The engines had just been fired up! She waited with baited breath for the lurch of the ship leaving the moon's surface (she could only assume they were still on Hyburn), fingers curling around the bench for safety. Eventually she felt the ship lift off, and lay back against the cool steel wall with her eyes close, fighting the motion sickness. There was the distant sound of an explosion as the ship broke atmosphere, and then her ears popped, and she felt a wave of nausea overcome her as the artificial gravity kicked in.

Talia stood up, and walked to the lexan glass pane, pushing against it in futility. She was hungry; she didn't know what time it was now but she wanted to be fed already. 0900, she thought, was early in the morning – how long had she been here for? Was it the middle of the night, or was her food already on its way? The artificial light she had known since waking up in the cell offered no notion of the passage of time, and that in of itself was starting to grate on her sanity. She turned her back to the glass and slid down it, sitting on the floor with her head tucked between her knees. How long was it to Ktsun, she wondered now? How long was she going to have to stay in this kriffing cell waiting for a tribunal that made no sense to her? Talia sighed deeply, and there came a high-pitched whining noise followed by another kick that shook her and made her fall to the side. She picked herself up and brushed a lock of hair out of her face – they'd just passed into hyperspace.

Boredom began to tear at Talia's mind. For what felt like hours she had paced the miniscule length of her tiny cell, waiting for something to happen to break the soul-crushing monotony. She couldn't imagine serving an actual sentence in prison, if this was what it was like after only a few hours. She clawed at her hair and let out a high pitched scream born of blood-boiling frustration, then ran at the lexan glass door and pounded it until her knuckles were bloody. Then she kicked at it, screaming with every blow that shook the reinforced frame. When she could go on no longer, she lay on the floor, writhing in agonising claustrophobia, and screamed and screamed until she was hoarse.

She came to where she'd lost her energy; on the floor, in the middle of the cell, breathing heavily, hair a mess, hands bloody. She picked herself up, pacified for the time being, and stared resting her arms on her knees out of the door. Stared at nothing. Just sat. And stared.

In the distance, muffled by the rumble of the ship's engine, she heard a door hiss open. She strained her ears for anything following; was that...? The faintest clink against metal...?

Yes.

Talia stood up, and straightened her hair.

Footsteps. Coming closer. Coming so tantalisingly closer.

She wondered, for one horrible instant, what would happen if they turned off down a side corridor and dissipated again. Could she survive such disappointment? She didn't know. She didn't want to find out.

In the event, though, she was spared. The footsteps paused for a moment, and there was another hiss as the nearby door to the detention block slid open, and a figure moved into view outside her cell.

Wearing the same boyish grin as he had on Hyburn.

Talia's jaw dropped. 'You!' she roared, her blood boiling again, 'I should have known! This is all your fault you kriffing bastard! Let me out of here right now!'

Lt. Corvarn held up his palms for peace, the smile not fading from his lips. He shook his head. 'Whoa whoa whoa, you have me all wrong...Talia, isn't it? Talia Sa'Ran?' when she didn't refute him, he looked as if he'd just struck gold. 'You're the one who attacked a corporal, you should know that actions have consequences.'

'Go to Hell!' Talia snapped back at him. 'You people were breaking into _my_ starship, they had no right to do that!'

'Hey,' Corvarn said, 'Third Platoon ain't got nothin' to do with me. I'm First Platoon.'

'Like that makes a world of difference!' Talia groaned in exasperation. 'What you're doing here is illegal! I'm being held against my will!'

The lieutenant scoffed, and reached his hand out, pressing some buttons on a keypad Talia couldn't see from her cell. 'Your little colony is in Wildspace, remember?' he said, and he continued to key something into the controls. 'You're off the grid, unrecognised by any sovereign government or corporation.' There was a hiss, and Talia jumped as her cell door slid open. Corvarn took a step forwards, into the cell with her, and when he spoke again there was a heavy air of malice in his voice. 'You _have no rights_.'

Talia backed away from him slowly, seized up by fear. She opened her mouth to say something but no sound came out. Before she knew what was happening, Corvarn was upon her. He'd taken hold of her wrists and pinned her hands to her sides, and leaned in, putting his lips on hers and sliding his tongue into her mouth.

Talia squirmed, and bit down hard on his tongue. Corvarn gave a yelp of pain and jumped back, and Talia, a rush of boldness overcoming her, spat out a glob of his blood onto his polished boots. Corvarn reacted immediately, smacking her across the face with the back of his hand so hard Talia fell sideways with the blow, knocking her head against the wall and momentarily dazing herself. She slid to the floor, stunned, groaning with agony as the world spun sickeningly around her.

She saw, through blurred vision, Corvarn unbuckling and removing his ammo belt and holster, placing them in the corridor outside the cell. Then she felt his hands around her ankles, pulling her down from where she was crumpled up by the wall. Her body was yanked towards him, head slipping from its purchase and banging with an agonising thump against the hard floor. Talia groaned again.

The next thing she was aware of was his hands, pushing up her top over her belly and scrabbling at the belt buckle on the front of her trousers. Too dazed to react, she murmured at him to stop, but he kept going until her buckle slipped open. Then she felt his cold fingertips scraping at the sides of her hip as they curled underneath her pants, giving a violent tug to yank them off...

'NO!' horror and terror grasped Talia as soon as her mind reacted at last to what was about to happen. She squirmed, trying to get away from him, but he just laughed and used one hand to stifle her screams as he sunk a sharp knee into her belly to pin her down. He continued tugging at her pants while Talia thrash and screamed into the sweaty palm of his hand and cried out for mercy.

'Shut up, you filthy kath hound,' Corvarn spat at her, 'you'll like it, just stop kriffing squirming!'

Talia felt her trousers give way to him, and she howled with terror as she felt his right hand exploring her. The fear and dread was like a vice in her throat, choking her, setting her blood afire, lending its strength to her muscles to thrash and writhe and try to throw Corvarn off of her. She felt one of his fingers prod her, and the stabbing pain caused her to choke, eyes snapping open.

She saw only red.

Edan Corvarn's body shot with the speed of a metal slug from a gun sideways, his head smashing against the metal wall of the cell. Now it was his turn to be dazed, while the fire that had ignited in Talia's belly energised her, shook the cobwebs from her dazed head and allowed her to stand up and replace her belt buckle.

Then she turned her attention back to him.

His eyes grew wide with terror, and he shook his head in a mixture of utter disbelief and horror.

'It's not possible,' he said, his voice a dumb moan. 'It can't be...no kriffing way...'

She felt the power coursing through her veins as she lifted her right hand. She didn't even have to touch him. She just squeezed with her fingers, and pulled her arm back, then punched the air. At her command, Corvarn's head pulled back from the wall, and then slammed back into it. She repeated the gesture. Again. And again. And again. He was whimpering with each skull-splintering blow, blubbering and crying like a pathetic baby. She giggled insanely. He was right, she realised; she _was_ liking this. Maybe the lieutenant did know how to please a woman after all. She slammed his head against the wall again, and again, and again, and again, until all Corvarn could manage was a sickening, blood-curdling gurgle from what was left of his skull.

By the time Republic Army First Lieutenant Edan Corvarn's body was released from Talia's ethereal death grip, the boyish grin had been sufficiently wiped from his face. She smiled at her work, at the messy red splodge on the floor that had once been a man's face. Then her eyes fell on the ammo belt he had discarded in the corridor in front of her – which now lay open to her. She stepped over his broken and battered body, and bent down to slide his blaster out of its holster. She checked the magazine, and a shiver of sick pleasure wracked her slender frame.

Her eyes focused on the door out of the detention block.

Her property had been seized by the Republic Army; she had been beaten for trying to claim it back; she was held against her will and now an officer of the Republic had tried to rape her. The beast within her roared malevolent defiance, so loud it was all she could hear. All she could see was the red of its eyes in her field of vision. It _demanded_ to be sated.

People would have to die for this, a voice whispered in her ear, and Talia obeyed it.

She tapped the appropriate button on the keypad, and the detention block door hissed open. Talia grinned, feeling the pulse of life throughout the ship, beating with the macabre slowness of a dying heart.

Talia knew, instinctively, where she was going. She turned left immediately out of the cell block, down another corridor of blinding clean white light and stainless steel, and found herself in a stairwell leading down to the bowels of the Republic Navy starship. She followed it down as low as it would go, some unheard voice whispering to her all the while, guiding her on her path.

At the end of the corridor two officers in dress-blues stood discussing something in hushed, earnest tones. Talia fingered the trigger guard on her blaster playfully as she approached, a spasm of anticipation licking at her soul, and approached them with quick, determined footsteps. One of the officers heard her footsteps and shot an inquisitive glance in her direction.

'Who are you? What do you think you're—' his demanding tones were cut short as a laser bolt sliced through his face. His companion let out a cry of shock, but Talia wasn't about to deprive a man of a friend. She shot the second officer in the stomach, and stepped over him as he writhed on the floor, crying out in agony and clutching his profusely bleeding stomach. He'd die of blood loss in at least half an hour, she thought as she went through a door leading to another stairwell and, finally, emerged on the engineering deck. He'd be with his friend again shortly.

The power generator was situated in the middle of a vast open space populated by whirring machines and bleeping computers, a crew of uniformed engineers darting back and forth between stations to keep the machinery in check. Nobody noticed when Talia stepped into the room, smoking blaster held lazily in her right hand. The beast within her growled, and a soft purr escaped through Talia's lips. The suffering of the second officer had fed the fires within her, and as she gazed about the room a plan – simple yet devastating – began to form itself in her mind.

She walked forwards, right into the middle of the room, staring at the power generator, and took aim. If anybody had noticed the attractive-looking female out of uniform and holding a blaster to the ship's core, no-one had time to react to the sight before Talia squeezed the trigger and sent a laser burst sailing into the energy field. There was an explosion, and the entire vessel gave a low rumble as its main power generator cut out.

There were cries of shock and horror from the assembled engineers, and Talia spun in a one-eighty degree turn just as the lights cut out and were replaced by red emergency lighting. Two men tried to get in her way, so she shot them both, and a third actually managed to reach for a pistol before she blasted him into oblivion. The inaudible, ghostly voice of instinct was gnawing at her again, telling her exactly where she had to go. Crewmen filed past her, racing to battle stations in the tired old routine of military drill. Anyone who stood in her way, she shot, gasping with pleasure as their last few seconds of horror and agony and despair filled her veins with raw power. She didn't know where it came from, but by this point she was through questioning it. With it, she was invincible.

The escape pods were locked down on the starboard side of the ship. There was such a confusion down in engineering that by the time Talia arrived, no-one had even thought to give an order to abandon ship, and so the evacuation room was empty of all other souls. Perfect, she thought. That suited her needs just fine.

The computer on the side of the door read that the escape pods were locked down without proper authorisation; blasting the screen, however, seemed to do the trick, and Talia was able to step through and seat herself down into one of the pods.

She strapped herself in quickly, flicking the safety on her blaster and depositing it in the seat next to her. The nav computer in the pod read that the ship was within pod range of a small moon, and it had set that as the automatic destination. No; she read it again. That was the destination for _all_ the ship's escape pods.

Talia licked her lips darkly as her course of action became clear. She accessed the emergency escape pod computer, and highlighted the option to "Jettison All." She paused, her finger hovering over the "Accept" key, a shiver of pleasure running up and down her spine. She imagined the flock of frantic men crashing into the room to sort themselves into evacuation sticks, only to find each and every pod tube already empty. She imagined the horror, the despair, the mental anguish. Talia moaned...then she let her finger drop. There was a distant rumbling, and she felt her pod being flung from the side of the Republic Navy cruiser; its empty siblings hot on her tail.

She leant back, and closed her eyes, the fires of anger slowly calming down within her. She didn't know how many souls crewed a Republic Navy starship, but she knew that every single one of them was now lost in space. As Talia's escape pod hurtled through the vacuum towards its unknown destination, she couldn't suppress a howling, delighted laugh.

Moments later, the escape pod broke atmosphere with an ear-splitting BANG, and Talia snapped back to attention as she braced for impact. The shock came, absorbed by the pod's impact dampers, but nonetheless strong enough to jar her forwards. If it hadn't been for the safety belt, she'd have been flattened against the exit hatch.

The straps pulled her back into the seat, and Talia settled as she felt the pod come to a rest...and then start to slowly roll to the side. Talia unclipped her belt and tried to step forwards, but her movement shifted the weight of the pod, and it lurched to the side, throwing her against the wall as the centre of gravity re-aligned itself. Cursing with the pain, Talia struggled to make sense of what was happening. It was then that she heard the sounds outside; the glooping, bubbling, heavy sound of a body of water.

The blood drained from Talia's face.

The escape pod had hit an ocean – she was submerged!

Panic gripped at her, but she forced herself to remain calm. She got up on all fours, careful to spread her weight out evenly so as not to spin the pod again, and slowly put one hand forward. Then a knee. Then another hand. Then the second knee. The escape pod was barely a meter away. Her breaths came ragged and fast, echoing around the small container, adding to her feeling of claustrophobia. There was a metallic groan from the pod as water pressure began to build up outside. Talia swallowed hard, and urged herself on. She was sinking deeper with each second she wasted.

She moved up at last to the escape hatch, and held on to the manual opening handle for support. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and her breaths were getting shallow. The pod's life-support systems were obviously designed to deactivate themselves upon atmospheric re-entry, which meant that she was now living off borrowed time. But out there...Talia drew a shaking breath. The moment she opened that hatch, a million gallons of icy cold sea water was going to rush in on top of her. Would she even survive, she wondered to herself?

There was no point in worrying about it, Talia realised. Either she opened that hatch or she suffocated to death in this pod. Talia wiped a solitary tear from her eye, and sucked in a lungful of air, and held it. Then her thumb manipulated the manual release, and, with a clang, the hatch swung open.

Talia shut her eyes as she fell with the motion of the door, pushed back by the sudden surge of freezing cold water that assaulted through the tiny opening at her. The bitter cold was so severe that Talia screamed, momentarily forgetting to hold her breath, and swallowed a mouthful of water.

Her instinctual reaction was to choke and splutter, but something in her, some vestige of mindfulness, realised that the moment she did that, she'd drown. She fought back against the reflex action, coughing the water out of her lungs and back into her mouth. The rushing had already stopped around her, and Talia realised the pod had already filled up. Numb with the cold, lungs starved of air and about to vomit up the salty solution in her mouth, Talia opened her eyes to look for the surface through the hatch.

There was nothing but dark. Fear clawed at Talia's heart, but she ignored it, forcing her legs to kick and swim upwards through the hatch, leaving the pod behind. She couldn't see the surface from here. Her lungs begged for air, her stomach churned at the taste in her mouth but she ignored it, kicking upwards and pulling with her arms with all her strength.

There was pitch blackness all around her. She'd orientated her body upwards and was kicking and swimming with all her last reserves of strength, but the farther she went the more she lost hope. Just how far under the surface of the water had she been dragged down before escaping that accursed pod? Her lungs were rasping now, fit to burst in her chest.

She kicked onwards, her lungs a white hot agony in her chest, stomach kicking at her belly, ordering her to throw up. Talia forced herself onwards, up and up, desperate for some pinprick of light that would give away the surface. No such luck. The longer she ascended the more maddeningly deep she realised she had sunken. All around her was black, and icy cold, and death.

Maybe it won't be so bad, she thought. Just open my mouth and breathe, and it'll all be over. A relaxed smile crept across Talia's face, and her kicking slowed ever so slightly. That's all it'd take. A few seconds of discomfort, maybe, and then she'd be okay. She wouldn't be cold. Her chest wouldn't hurt. It would all be okay.

Talia closed her eyes, ignoring the images of Jana and Tami that raced through her mind, and prepared to meet the creator.

The sound of a thousand suns exploding filled Talia's ears, and she felt as if a great weight had suddenly been draped over her head. She opened her eyes in shock just in time to see a grimly dark horizon – black on black – slip out of sight again as her head fell under the water. She engaged her legs and kicked upwards. She broke the surface a second time, and opened her mouth to breath, forgetting the seawater she still had there. Talia coughed, and spluttered, and then threw up into the sea, instinctively swimming away from it as she gasped desperately for breath.

She had made it! She was alive! An insane laugh escaped from her throat as adrenaline took over. The mad rush of what she had just done – _she_, a sewer rat from Nar Shadaa! – overcame her senses, and, alone and freezing cold and still probably about to die, Talia began to cry. Not tears of fear or sorrow, but, tears of unrelenting ecstasy at the insanity of what she had just accomplished. What happened next didn't really matter.

The swell in the ocean carried her back a few more meters, and suddenly her feet were dragging on sand. Talia spun around to find herself, with all the stupid dumb luck she hardly deserved after such a lucky escape, being guided onto a stony beach by the waves. Talia leaned forwards and let herself crawl on all fours out of the water, shivering bitterly, her breath crystallising in front of her face, even in the dark.

When she reached dry land, her muscles gave out, and Talia collapsed onto the beach, exhaling a shallow breath.


	8. Chapter 8

Hey all, apologies for the lateness of this post - Christmas holidays have kept me busy! Likewise I probably won't be doing much writing over Christmas or the New Year, but, expect to see the next chapter in early January, all going well!

Hope you all enjoy this chapter, and please feel free to criticise, laud, draw attention to something in, or, whatever - all feedback is really appreciated!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all, see you on the other side :)

* * *

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

"**Fear of the Dark"**

The starship arrived on the third day.

If not for the time spent with the colonists on Hyburn, Talia may not have even survived that long. Joining the hunting parties for two days out of the working week armed with nothing more than a sharpened wooden stick had given her a talent for fighting with a crude melee weapon born out of practical necessity and desperation. With no blaster or technology to speak of, she had nonetheless managed to feed herself enough to tide her over on the desert island she found herself on, the morning after her pod crashed into the ocean. Finding water to drink was a little trickier – growing up in the slums of Nar Shadaa hadn't equipped her with the knowhow to build herself a fire, and so purifying seawater wasn't an option. At length, unable to bear the thirst any longer, Talia had ventured inland to find a fresh water source – she'd been lucky on the morning of the second day to locate one and, having killed the bovine creature drinking from it for breakfast, helped herself to it and even bathed afterwards. Things had been profoundly easier after that.

She heard the ship before she saw it. It was midday on the third day and she was stalking another of the bovine creatures for her lunch – she was not sure how long she could leave freshly killed and unprepared meat out in the sun before it would spoil, and elected to take no chances. It was easier to kill for every meal rather than risk getting sick with no means at her disposal to recuperate. She was deep behind the treeline now, a green canopy overhead blocking most of the sunlight from view. It was strange, knowing it was the middle of the day and yet being doused in an almost unnatural gloom. The high-pitched scream of heavy sublight engines in atmo was unmistakable, and when they hit, they shook the life out of the trees, a flock of birds crying angrily as they took to the skies in search of safer pastures. The roar of engines overheard startled the creature Talia was stalking into bolting, but she'd already lowered her spear in her hands and was squinting up through the canopy to see the source of the sound, but to no avail.

The scream of the ship's engines roared its way overhead, and Talia broke into a sprint to get through the thick, humid undergrowth of the jungle back to the beach to where she could hope to see it more clearly. And see it she did.

It was clearly a starship outfitted for battle. Black metal glistening in the sunlight, it was bristling with weapons of every sort from its dark hull, bearing markings that Talia did not recognise. They were not, she was certain, markings of the Republic, and that gave her no end of hope. Spear still in hand, Talia began to jump up and down on the rocky shore, waving her arms in the air frantically, shouting at the top of her lungs to be heard by some sensor or scanner aboard the formidable warship.

She felt quite foolish, standing there on the beach waving and shouting at that airborne goliath hovering in the planet's atmosphere like some dreadful black iron cloud. Talia raced down the shoreline, splashing through the tide washing up against the rocky shingle of the beach, frantically thrashing her arms about in an effort to be noticed. Overhead the warship's engines purred tauntingly, idle in disuse but moaning out their presence to all who would listen. Talia knew the ship's sudden arrival could not possibly be a coincidence; it was no doubt responding to the downed Republic Navy vessel. No doubt, the captain had managed to fire off an emergency transmission before the ship succumbed and burned up in atmosphere, taking her entire crew with her.

Talia slowed her pace down to a walk, then a crawl, then stopped altogether, foamy seawater swishing around her ankles. She stood panting, gazing up at the dark behemoth in the skies above her, the vibrations of the engine like a power drill through her brain. She screamed at the top of her lungs, kicking at the water in frustration. A wave of hopelessness overcame her then, and Talia sunk to the ground, sitting down in reach of the tide, ignoring the biting cold in her strop.

She didn't sense the man approaching her from the treeline until they were already upon her.

'Easy there, miss,' the voice startled Talia and she leapt to her feet, turning around just in time to see a sandy-haired young man in unkempt and mismatched military uniform raise a rifle in her direction. 'Easy now! No need for any sudden movements.'

Talia froze, and instinctively raised both her hands. There was a good few metres between him and her; even if the bloodcurdling rage that had overcome her senses aboard the Republic Navy starship had consumed her again, she'd never have been able to cross that distance before the soldier squeezed off a shot. Instead, Talia elected the route of patience. The soldier took a nervous step forwards, rifle aimed squarely at her chest, his eyes not blinking, not breaking contact. From the treeline behind him, up the beach, three more figures in military uniform emerged. Two of them, faces obscured by helmets, cradled rifles similar to the one now pointed at Talia. The third had a blaster dangling from his hip, and beneath a mop of messy raven hair two blue eyes shone out prettily in the sunlight towards Talia. Something in her gut told her that this was the man she should direct her attentions to; this was the man in charge.

'At ease there, corporal,' he said in a voice as smooth as silk yet hard as tempered steel. Talia felt a quiver take to her belly. 'No need to frighten the girl.'

'If it's all the same to you sarge, I'm not taking any chances,' the sandy-haired soldier replied, his eyes not leaving Talia for a second.

Upon raising her hands, Talia had discarded her makeshift hunting spear, and the tide had carried it down the beach, well out of reach of her now. 'I'm no threat to you,' she said at length, 'I'm unarmed!'

'You heard the girl, corporal,' the sergeant said in his luscious voice, 'she's no threat. Lower your weapon.'

'_They_ don't need weapons, sergeant,' the corporal responded, placing particular emphasis on the word _they_. 'I'd rather have her painted until we have support.'

'Support?' the sergeant gazed around. 'There are four of us here, I'm sure we can handle one little girl,' as he spoke he gave a nod to one of the helmeted soldiers by his side. At this unspoken command, the soldier unslung his rifle and placed it butt-down in the shingle on the beach for support while he knelt on one knee. He put a hand to where his ear must have been, underneath the helmet, and spoke quickly, his voice crackling through the helmet's mouthpiece.

'Havoc-Actual, this is Havoc-3-2, we have made contact with the principle and are requesting immediate evac, how copy, over?' There was a pause, an awkward silence in the soldier's one-way conversation, and then he said, 'solid copy on all Havoc-Actual, Havoc-3-2 out.' The soldier stood up again, picking back up his rifle, and nodded to his sergeant. 'Havoc is scrambling an evac, ETA five mikes,' the sergeant nodded in response and stepped forwards. He placed a hand on the corporal's shoulder and, at long last, the corporal lowered his rifle. Talia breathed a sigh of relief, and, hesitantly, lowered her hands.

'We don't want to hurt you,' the sergeant said, his pretty eyes flicking quickly to the corporal and back to Talia, as if apologising for his subordinate's behaviour, 'but you were in an accident and we're not sure how much you remember, how stable you might be right now.'

'I'm fine,' Talia replied calmly, keeping her voice even. She could not make head nor tails of any of this but was not about to do herself an injury by reacting with hostility to her only ticket off this oceanic rock. 'My name is Talia Sa'Ran, I was...' she hesitated, wondering how truthful she should be but, considering that neither the soldiers' uniforms nor the warship they had arrived on had Republic markings, she decided to take the liberal road, '...I was imprisoned on a Republic Navy starship before...before she went down. I've been surviving here on my own for three days.'

The soldiers shared a look, one Talia could not make out on the faces of the two unmasked NCOs, and then the sergeant nodded. 'I'm Sergeant Kalen Jaska of the Ktsun Unification Front. I'm under orders to rescue you and get you off this moon.'

'_Me_?' Talia was gradually coming back to the intuition she had gotten used to as her mysterious powers developed on Hyburn. She knew the sergeant was not making a figure of speech; she could sense that she was the entirety of their presence on this moon. 'How did you even know I'd be here, that I'd survive the crash...?'

Sergeant Jaska bit his bottom lip – a boyish, self-humbling action that Talia, to her shame, found irresistible. Regardless of her situation she couldn't but feel a little swayed by the sergeant's stunning good looks. 'I think it would be better if that was explained to you by my master,' he said at length, no longer meeting her gaze.

'_Master_...?' Talia responded slowly, and in her mind she added, _not commanding officer_? Just what kind of set-up was this "Ktsun Unification Front" running...?

'As I said,' he replied, 'it would be easier if it's all explained to you by my master. He could make you understand more than I could. I'm...I'm just a grunt, ma'am,' he shrugged, and again Talia was knocked for six by how good he looked doing it, 'they don't really tell me much.'

'T-Talia...' she stammered, '...you can just call me Talia.'

'Sure thing, ma'am,' Sergeant Jaska said, and Talia could almost feel him resisting the urge to wink at her.

They weren't much longer waiting – shortly after Talia's initial exchanged with the small squad, a dropship screamed into view overhead and set down a few yards from where the five of them stood. An officer climbed out of it and demanded a situation report from the sergeant before shaking Talia's hand and asking if she was hurt. Talia replied that she wasn't, and he exchanged more pleasantries as he bundled her aboard the small transport. Talia shivered as the dropship took to the skies, kicking up a freezing cold spray of seawater underneath the pressure from its sublight engines. As the dropship climbed into the atmosphere, the officer donned a headset and began to shout to be heard over the roar of the ship's engines.

'Havoc-Actual this is Havoc-3, package is secure and away, we are oscar mike back to home base. No other survivors located, I say again, no other survivors located. Havoc-3 out.' The officer replaced the headset and nodded to himself slowly. Aside from his initial niceties he didn't seem to pay Talia any attention; as far as he was concerned he had done his duty, he had no personal interest in the girl washed up ashore on some strange world in uncharted Wildspace. Talia shuffled awkwardly, unable to get comfortable under the crushing presence of so many armed men. She was growing tired of soldiers. She just wanted to be home and to play with Tami and chat with Jana to all hours and put this whole messy business behind her.

They docked minutes later, and the team that had located her dispersed, patting each other on the back and visibly relaxing now that they were in friendly territory. As the dropship's engines were killed, ray-shields fired into life on the hangar bay doors and the warship's engines gave a roar as the starship began to move again, creeping carefully up towards the vacuum of space.

The officer and the sergeant directed Talia off the flight deck and down a maze of corridors. She got suspicious glances from crewmen and marines alike as she was whisked through the belly of the starship too fast to even take stock of her surroundings. She wasn't afraid; just numb to all goings on around her. She had been numb since clambering out of that ocean and onto the beach three days ago; her rapidness of her discovery and rescue did little to offset that. She started to wonder if she'd ever feel normal again. If she'd ever see Hyburn again.

Talia swallowed hard as the officer stopped by a set of double-doors, and straightened his tunic. 'The Master is inside,' he said quietly to Talia, and she shot Sergeant Jaska a forlorn look (his expression was unreadable) before pushing through to the final conclusion of this insane downward spiral her life found itself on as of late.

The room beyond was dark.

It looked to Talia like a conference room of some sort; the sole piece of furbishing was an obsidian black table that took up the centre of the small room, ringed by matching tall-backed chairs. In front of each lay small computer terminals, all powered down, adding to the gloominess of the room. At the far end of the table – seated in the space furthest away from the door, which now shut with a clang behind Talia – was a tall, skinny figure, shrouded in the darkness. Talia blinked her eyes, trying to adjust them to the low lightning that wasn't helped by the dim shafts of light that shot from floor to ceiling all around the walls of the room, like some sort of celestial pillars keeping the roof over their heads.

Upon seeing her enter, the figure stood up. He towered well over two meters in height, a stature made all the more unsettling by his gaunt, stick-like frame. Talia felt a cold shiver dance up and down her spine at the sight of the alien before her. He tapped the computer screen in front of him, and there was a beeping sound as it switched to a screensaver, casting a red light on the creature's face.

Talia did her best not to recoil in fright. The creatures head was larger than a human's, almost double in size. Its eyes were sunken into the skull and black, black, black as the void of space. From the crown of its bald head all the way to the base of its visible neck she could see what looked like lines – lines carved by nature into the alien's head – symmetrically running along the alien's skin. In its mouth she could clearly make out pointed, crooked teeth that looked well equipped to rend flesh from bone, and the nails on his fingers were sharpened almost to claw-like quality. Talia held her ground, and forced herself to keep eye-contact.

'I sense great fear in you, Talia Sa'Ran,' the alien spoke in a rasping voice that chilled Talia to the bone. 'But I am not an enemy, and I offer you no harm.'

Talia searched deep within herself for her courage, which she felt had all but deserted her in the presence of this spectral figure. 'How do you know who I am?' she demanded in what she hoped was a strong voice. 'What is it you want with me?'

The alien leaned forwards with his hands on the table for balance, and regarded her coldly with those black eyes. 'Do you fear me?' his voice was like sandpaper. Talia gulped before replying.

'Yes.'

'You needn't,' he croaked dryly, 'you destroyed an entire battleship and its full complement of crewmen just by giving in to your baser instincts. You need fear no mortal enemy.'

Talia felt her knees nearly buckle in shock. 'How could you _possibly_ know that...?' she didn't even think to deny it. There was no point.

What passed for a weak smile spread across the alien's lipless mouth. 'I have felt it. One with your distinct talent cannot hope to remain hidden for long.'

Now, intrigue got the better of her, and Talia took a step towards the conference table. 'You know what's wrong with me...? What's been happening to me all this time...?'

The alien sat down at his chair, and switched off the computer terminal in front of him. The red light glare faded, and once again he was shrouded in darkness. 'Perhaps you should take a seat.' Talia was too caught up in the moment to think twice. She did as she was told. The gaunt alien steepled his hands as he gazed across the table at her.

'There is nothing amiss with you, Talia Sa'Ran,' he said slowly, 'in fact, quite the opposite. You have a rare and magnificent gift, Talia. A sense for something that most can only dream of; and fewer still have the understanding of to even realise that they crave it.' He paused, and when Talia offered no retort he concluded his line of conversation. 'You are sensitive to the subtleties of the Force.'

Talia's eyes went wide, and she felt the room twist and turn around her – whether from the kick of the starship entering hyperspace or from dreamlike disbelief, she could not tell. Such a thing had come up in conversation before, with Jana, but Talia had never truly entertained it...it was too ridiculous, too fantastical to consider. Talia could barely muster a squeak when she'd caught her breath enough to reply, 'You mean to tell me that...that I'm a Jedi...?'

Talia could not see the alien's face now in the dark, she could not see what expression he wore. 'The Jedi are an order,' he explained calmly, 'who practise merely one of many interpretations of the Living Force. What you have experienced is raw, untrained power, a result of your innate affinity of the Force but conscious ignorance of it.'

Talia was slow on the uptake, but eventually she picked apart the alien's words and realised the meaning behind them. 'You mean to say...that I could be _even more_ powerful?'

'And more powerful _again_ than whatever you can imagine,' the alien replied, and now there was a lively energy to his voice, 'yes. With the right training, yes.'

It took a few more seconds for Talia to fully appreciate what was being said. Suddenly, all at once, the events of the preceding months seemed to make sense. Her razor-sharp senses, the all-consuming power she had felt coursing through her veins in moments of distress or anger, and...she thought back to her incarceration and subsequent violent exodus...her insane ability to manipulate objects around her. Talia realised, with a start, that she was trembling.

'How do you know all this...?' she asked, her curiosity and intrigue getting the better of her disbelief.

The alien replied without missing a beat. 'I sensed your breathtaking destruction of the Republic starship, just as I sense now the raw power pumping through your veins, begging to be released. You and I are alike in this, Talia, bar one detail – I have been trained to hone my powers and my skills, whereas you have yet to be.'

Talia, at last, was beginning to understand. 'You're a Jedi...?'

'I was. Once. Centuries ago,' – Talia noted in the back of her mind that, whatever species this creature was, they must have had lengthy lifespans – 'until I embarked down another path, a purer path.' The alien paused, and took a breath. 'It is no coincidence that your talent has manifested itself through stress and angst and passion, Talia Sa'Ran,' he said quietly, 'for that is the natural state of the Force. The Force is emotion made manifest. And this is the great truth that my Jedi masters failed to grasp; it is what convinced me that the greater mysteries lay elsewhere. Lay within the Dark Side of the Force.'

Almost as soon as the words left the creature's mouth, a chill passed through the room, and Talia shivered. When she looked back up, it was almost as if the room had darkened further, for now she could barely make out the alien's silhouette.

'I can teach you of its ways, its tenets, its subtleties. I am in need of an apprentice and you, Talia, are the most promising candidate I have stumbled across in two hundred years.'

'What are you saying...?'

'I am extending to you an offer, Talia Sa'Ran,' the alien rasped. 'Become my apprentice; learn the ways of the Dark Side and I will unlock within you your true potential. You will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine; not even the pitiful Jedi will stand to challenge you.'

Talia hung her head, the alien's words washing over her. It all seemed unreal, like some crazy dream she couldn't wake from. _Her_, adept in the ways of the Force? How was that even possible...? But yet...it explained so much. It explained _everything_.

Images of Hyburn flashed before Talia's eyes. Visions of Jana, of Tami, of Lar and Herec and all the others...the utter serenity and peace and bliss she had found there. For the first time in her life, things had been simple. Things had been easy.

She had felt in control.

And she wasn't about to give that up. Not for all the power in the galaxy.

'I'm sorry,' Talia said sternly, meeting what she assumed to be the alien's gaze through the darkness, 'but I am not the great warrior or...sorceress or..._whatever_...that you seem to think I am. I'm just...I'm just a sewer rat, a mechanic from Nar Shadaa who finally made something of herself in a frontier colony world. I'm not some great and powerful wizard. I want...' Talia sighed, and in that instant she realised just how exhausted she was. Her skin seemed to sag, hanging off her frame as if too heavy for her bones to support. '...I want to go home. Please. I-I'm sorry.'

The alien remained silent and still for what seemed like an eternity. Talia dared not breathe. At last, just when Talia was considering speaking to break the woeful silence, he spoke again, and his voice was soft and dry. 'Very well. I cannot hold you here against your will. I will inform the captain of our change in course, and we shall fly you back to your colony world. You do know of its location...?'

'The forest moon of Hyburn,' the words spilled out of Talia almost immediately, so relieved was she by the creature's pliability. As soon as she said them, however, the alien visibly froze up in the darkness. Talia could sense a flicker of doubt cross its heart. Unsurely, she asked what was wrong.

'Then you truly do not know...?'

'Know what...?'

'Before alighting from your world, the...the Republic Army lay waste to your colony. I cannot conceive of the reason why; such an action does not seem within the mandate of an ostensible peacekeeping force, and yet...' the alien paused even as horror engulfed Talia's heart, '...they destroyed the colony, down to the last infant, and left to continue their voyage to the Ktsun system,' the creature slammed his fist hard down on the table, and Talia jumped, a sob choking her throat, '_my_ system!'

Talia's brain raced. It couldn't be true. There was no way it could be true...not Jana...not Lar...not _Tami_...no, no, no, _no, no, NO_!

'You have to take me back!' she demanded.

'As I said, I will instruct the captain to alter course...'

'_No_, you have to take me back RIGHT NOW!' Talia screamed, standing up now as her whole frame shook violently. 'I need to go back. NOW. It can't...it's not true...it can't be true...I need to...I need to go back...please...please...' Before she knew it, she had collapsed to her knees and was sobbing bitterly, salty tears streaming freely down her face and her speech becoming unintelligible as she wailed – _wailed _ – on the floor of this alien's conference room. Grief overwhelmed her, and the alien stood and crossed over to her and crouched down beside her, putting a boney, deathly-thin arm around her for no great amount of comfort.

Talia did not remember much beyond that. She awoke some hours later, having been taken up to a private quarters by helmeted crewmen, and sobbing herself to sleep on a small cot, the bitter emptiness of space her only companion. When she woke up, her grief remained, and she simply slid out of bed, unkempt and unwashed, and walked out into the hall. She was almost bowled over by Sergeant Jaska.

'Ma'am Sa'Ran, miss,' he stammered, awkwardly fixing the front of his tunic, 'my master requests your presence on the observation deck. We'll be breaking atmo in about ten minutes.'

'Thank you, sergeant,' her voice was cold and monotone, her entire humour an empty vessel that once contained the capacity for emotion. No longer, no longer. Talia did not just feel exhausted; she felt drained. Unable to deal with the overwhelming horror of what the alien had revealed to her, she had simply shut down. She felt nothing; thought nothing; knew nothing. Her body reacted mechanically, going through familiar motions and responding to outside stimuli, but nothing more. Nothing more. Talia did not know if she was alive or dead but, not-so-secretly, she wished she was dead. She didn't want to have to come to terms with the reality that _this_ was all life had to offer her.

'Y-you can call me Kalen, ma'am,' the sergeant replied but, seeing that Talia was in no mood – or incapable of even registering – a dollop of humour, he simply cleared his throat and led her through the labyrinthine warship's belly to the observation deck at the highest level.

Here, they found the alien, decked out in fine burgundy robes, staring with his hands clasped behind his back out of the viewport at the massive gas giant that was Hyburn, and its little green moon in orbit around it. Talia felt nothing staring out at the sight that had come to mean home. Nothing but a distant, ethereal longing to just not be there anymore. To not be anywhere.

'Thank you, Sergeant Jaska. You are dismissed,' the alien said without turning around. Kalen spun on his heel but paused, and put out a hand to touch Talia's shoulder. It lingered, and for a moment Talia thought it was nice – but then she remembered where she was and what was happening, and she felt dead again.

'I'm...I'm sorry this had to happen to you,' Kalen said quietly, 'you have my sincerest condolences.' And then he was gone, back down the elevator through which they had emerged, leaving Talia alone on the deck with the alien.

'We are not alone,' the alien said matter-of-factly, choosing, it would seem, to ignore the fact that Talia was unresponsive. 'The _Forlorn Hope_ is already in orbit around your frontier world. Their marines have already secured the site of the colony.' There was silence as Talia found she had nothing to respond to that. Then he said, 'Take a look.'

Stirring at the request, Talia stepped forwards robotically, coming to stand next to the monolithically tall alien by the viewport. Sure enough, in orbit around the moon of Hyburn she could make out another black starship, of a similar design to the one she was on now. The _Forlorn Hope_. It was a good name for a warship, Talia thought; it was an ironic name for her current state of mind.

'I want to go down,' she demanded, 'I want to see it for myself.' She did not say please, or ask permission. This was not a request. This was a statement.

'Of course,' the alien responded coolly, 'once we rendezvous with the _Forlorn Hope_ I shall have a shuttle and an escort prepared. You may see the damage for yourself. I only hope you find some solace or closure whilst down there.'

Talia didn't reply. She expected to find nothing but desolation and shattered memories; a physical projection of the empty wound that had replaced her very soul.

A half-hour later, Talia was summoned to the flight deck where a platoon of marines had assembled by the dropship. An officer finished briefing them and then turned to Talia while his men piled onto the ship. Talia shook her head at him, and pushed past him to climb on board – she was in absolutely no mood for pitiless platitudes and attempts at sympathy.

With a lurch, the dropship alighted, the blast-doors on its side sliding shut before it breached the hangar ray-shields and exposed its hull to the cold death of space. In the back of the ship they flew blind; nothing but a dim red bulb to light the faces of the assembled soldiers, and Talia, who remained gazing mournfully down at her boots. The flight seemed to her to drag on forever, the metal walls of the ship closing in around her, the armour of the troops heating up the small cabin and making it harder to catch a breath. The claustrophobia suddenly became unbearable, and Talia found herself grinding her teeth and wringing her hands. Around her, the banter of the soldiers flew over her head, almost inaudible against the numbing blankness of her mind.

She didn't even notice when the dropship touched down, and the blast doors slid open for the marine contingent to file out by squads. Silently, Talia unbuckled her belt and disembarked from the dropship, blinking in the blinding sunlight for a moment.

What she saw nearly made her fall to her knees in all-consuming madness then and there.

Black smoke billowed forth from the charred and broken corpse of what had once been the camp. Building and dwellings lay cracked open like eggs, blasted by explosives and heavy weapons. She followed the men into the main thoroughfare and was nearly bowled over by the stench of death. Bodies lay scorched in heaps, piled at the ends of the street to ensure quick movement through the camp. Blaster markings scorched the surface of everything; every shopfront, every home, every landspeeder. Talia bit back tears, and spun on her heel, setting off at a run towards the hill.

Towards Jana and Lar's house.

It lay nestled at the edge of camp, the farthest stretch of civilisation the colonists of Hyburn had managed to tame. Its face, too, was scarred and pockmarked by blaster fire and yet, unlike the rest of the camp, it was intact. The massacre must have petered out by the time the Republic soldiers reached it. Talia gulped, suppressing the spark of hope that licked upwards from her belly, and slid the front door across. With baited breath, she stepped inside.

There were signs of a vicious struggle; dishes were smashed and lay strewn across the floor, the table and the chairs in the dining area were overturned, books and vids lay scattered about the place and...

...Talia fell backwards, throwing an arm out to the wall for support. Lying face down in the threshold between the main room and Tami's playroom was Lar, body charred and blasted almost enough to make him unrecognisable. A sickly shiver gripped Talia, and she put her hands over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. Clutched desperately in Lar's arms, hugged close to his chest, was a bundle, wrapped tightly, turned black by fire...

_No_. _No, no, no_...

Talia felt the familiar sensation of pure, uncaged anger well up inside of her, desperate to escape and have itself heard. She bit her bottom lip – almost hard enough to draw blood – and tried to calm herself. She couldn't see Jana anywhere. She wasn't here.

Talia stepped outside, putting the horror of that room behind her, and walked back to the main thoroughfare. It hit her suddenly; Jana may have been at work when the soldiers attacked. Swallowing hard, forcing herself not to think about any of the desolation around her, Talia set off at a jog towards Dr. Chann's infirmary. It, though located at the centre of the camp, had avoided the worst of the fighting too, it seemed, and remained intact – the sole building on that street not to be blasted apart. Talia pushed inside, and stared through the darkness to try and find her lifelong best friend.

The ground floor was bereft of bodies. Here, like at Lar's house, there were signs of a struggle, but no bodies. Talia went upstairs to the Chann family's living quarters. She checked the kitchen, the dining room, the living area...but, nothing. She hesitated. Her heart wept for her friend, for the Chann twins. No children their age should have had to see such terror and horror before the end...no-one...

_The twins_.

The thought was like a punch to the face, snapping Talia to the present with a sobering glare. Slowly, she turned her head, and stared dumbly at the stairs leading up to the third floor of the house – to the bedrooms. Talia shook her head, and repeated the word 'No...' out loud to herself, as if just by saying it she could wake up from this awful nightmare and remember none of it come the morning. Regardless, her legs reacted automatically, carrying her up the stairs, trembling like a leaf.

'No...no...no' every step, another no, the trepidation rising in the pit of Talia's stomach until she felt she could handle no more. She reached the landing, and gazed around, still shaking her head, still repeating the word 'no' pathetically.

She recognised the twins' room. She swallowed, and took a faltering step towards the door. She reached out, and slid it aside...

Emi and Asli lay naked on their beds, eyes open, staring glassily out towards Talia, but not seeing her. Talia shuddered, and stepped into the room ('No, no, no...'). She reached their beds and fell at once to her knees, putting her hand over her mouth and wailing helplessly. Their bedsheets were covered in blood, blood inconsistent with the gruesome way their heads were twisted on their bodies as a result of the broken necks that had killed them both. Talia moaned, and then cried, and then screamed, thumping her chest in incomprehensible rage and sorrow.

They'd been so young, so innocent, so beautiful...Talia rocked forwards so that she fell to her hands and knees and wept bitterly into the carpeted floor.

She got a hold of herself after five minutes, and checked the other rooms. Sure enough, in the master bedroom she found Jana much as she had found the twins – clothes ripped and torn from her body, wrists bound to the bed and scratch marks over her arms, face and belly. She too had died of a broken neck. Talia crossed over to the bed, sobbing helplessly, and untied Jana's hands from the post. She held her best friend's body close to her, rocking her head back and forth, and kissing her forehead over, and over, and over.

'I love you...' Talia whispered, barely able to speak for her sobs. 'I love you so much, Jana...' she wiped her eyes, '...and I will see you again...I promise...' she lay Jana back on the bed and covered up her indecency with the bedsheets, then left the Chann house, her heart broken; spirit crushed.

Back out in the thoroughfare she was surprised to see the alien, the master of the Ktsun Unification Front, standing outside, conversing with a couple of officers who were summarily dismissed when Talia emerged. He crossed over to her, and bowed his head in pity. Talia stopped dead in front of him. She burned with hatred, a fire that raged with the intensity of a thousand supernovas. If it was her anger that fed her powers, her affinity for the Force, her anger that gave her strength, then she felt in that moment invincible, like she could claim the entire galaxy by simply reaching out to take it for herself.

'I wish...I wish there was something I could do to mitigate your suffering,' the alien said slowly, eyes not leaving her. Talia did not break eye contact.

She simply said, 'But there _is_ something you can do. The only thing that's left for me in this whole entire galaxy.' The alien raised a curious eyebrow and Talia got down on one knee, bowing her head to the earth in supplication to the wayward Dark Jedi.

There was a sound like a scoff from the alien. 'Does this mean you will accept my offer? You will apprentice yourself to my tutelage?'

Still bowing, still on one knee, Talia nodded her head. She opened her mouth, and closed it, unsure of what to say. Did she have what it took to be an apprentice? To obey her master in all things, to submit completely and utterly to his wishes? Talia, in that moment, did not know. She simply cleared her throat, and opened her mouth to speak again. When she spoke, she felt as if a great weight was lifted from her shoulders, and the fog and uncertainty and horror of the desolated encampment around her was scrubbed a way to be replaced by the bright, blinding glare of destiny.

'What is thy bidding, my master?'


	9. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER NINE**

"The Revanchist"

_Peace is a lie_.

Through the dark, a light.

_There is only passion_.

Flickering, writhing, dancing.

_Through passion, I gain strength_.

Twisting as a flame does in blackest night.

_Through strength, I gain power._

Growing, spreading, engulfing.

_Through power, I gain victory_.

Until the night is swallowed whole in blazing fire.

_Through victory, my chains are broken_.

Death, desolation, holocaust.

_The Force shall free me_.

All that remains; ash and forlorn hope.

_Peace is a lie._

On the one hundred and thirty first day of the Siege of Ktsun Minoris, the sun was suddenly and unexpectedly eclipsed.

The small moon and its garrison of Ktsun Unification Front reservists had held out against the joint League of Independent Ktsun Worlds and Galactic Republic armada for nearly half of a standard year in the Ktsun System. For the League and their Republic allies, the battle was a sure thing – it was a matter of when, and not if, the Unification Front defenders would capitulate to disease, starvation and orbital bombardment.

When the sun was extinguished on that final day of bloody battle, not a single League or Republic soldier stationed on the moon had an inkling of what was about to happen.

And not a single League or Republic soldier would live to tell of what was about to happen.

_Peace is a lie. There is only passion._

_ Through passion, I gain strength._

_ Through strength, I gain power._

_ Through power, I gain victory._

_ Through victory, my chains are broken._

_ The Force shall free me_.

The words echoed through Talia Sa'Ran's mind as the enemy encampment came into view through the viewport of the military shuttle. Her throat was dry, her head felt light and her palms were sweaty – she kept having to wipe them against her trousers, and just hoped that the shuttle crew did not notice her unease. It was impossible, of course, to hide it from her master. He sensed all, he knew all. He could tell when she was at peace, when she was hungry, when she was tired, when she had given back into the grief over the loss of her best friend and everything they had built together on Hyburn. Nothing escaped the notice of her Pau'an lord and master. And now, he could no doubt sense her fear.

Over the moon's pockmarked surface below, a reluctant sun was rising, casting its gaze over a battlefield strewn with the remains of the forgotten and unburied dead. League, Republic, Unification Front…all men were as one in death. Uniform colours bled together; red and damp, black and charred, brown and soiled. The aftermath of battle not almost as dramatically spectacular as its undertaking. The occasional laser bolt scorched the surface; a momentary flash of red or blue or green; a sniper's bullet, a heart's terminus. This moon was dead, burnt to grey ash by a hundred plus days of warfare, and yet it fought on, undeterred like the rabid spectre of a vengeful warlord, not content with drawing its final breath until it had taken every last son and daughter screaming into the void with it. There was nothing on this planet but death, destruction and misery. And in that, there was everything.

Talia felt it – a dull throbbing at first, then a burning sensation that engulfed all of her senses in a passionate thrashing that no lover past, present or future could hope to provide. There was _power_ here. Power to be slaked from the weeping souls of the recently dead. The agony of their final moments; the despair in their dying cries; the malice of the hearts and souls that sent them screaming to their shallow graves. _Malice_. The word was as delicious on Talia's tongue as the feelings of power it injected into her. _Malice_.

_Malice is strength. Malice is power. Malice is victory._

The realisation comforted her a little. Her master had brought her here for a reason other than the obvious; the Dark Side of the Force was strong in agony, and despair, and…and _malice_. The dead would make her strong. In death they would achieve more than they could possibly have dreamt of in the pitiful, semi-conscious existence they believed to be life. Already, Talia neither pitied nor felt gratitude to them for their sacrifice. They were as desert mites upon the rump of a dewback. Insignificant. She felt nothing but contempt for them, men and women, sent to die at the behest of faceless masters.

They deserved all of their sorry fates. They deserved worse.

In the back of the shuttle, her master stirred. With one skeletal, bony finger he indicated towards the viewport closest him, and Talia stretched out of her seat to get a better look.

Below, mired in the smoke and fog of battle, standing erect like a monument to the vainglorious dead in a graveyard for pawns, stood the last holdout of the Unification Front's garrison. The final barricade to complete League and Republic control of Ktsun Majoris, the system's core planet. What a sorry sight it was, Talia thought to herself. Ancient bricks blackened by laser blasts toppled from their once proud purchase atop shelled turrets and broken spires, once no doubt beautifully befitted the moon's sole community centre. The inner sanctum, a rectangular stone bastion standing proudly on overwatch atop a layered pyramid, was now but a nest for a multitude of tiny black figures, running to and fro, setting up scopes, sniper rifles and other instruments of war and death. The occasional laser burst from the graveyard around them zipped over their heads, and reminded them that, somewhere in that sepulchre monument to war that had once been a living, breathing world, the enemy still lurked with bloody thoughts and the means to realise them.

'This is the place, Flight Lieutenant,' Talia's master's voice rasped, and she settled back into her seat. 'Set us down.'

'Very good, Lord Vickerus,' the pilot's voice (Talia was seated with her back to the cockpit) sounded out in response. The shuttle's engines changed in tone as the starship suddenly banked hard to port, swooping low over the decimated ruins of a once vibrant and renowned holiday destination for families of all fourteen of the Ktsun System's worlds. The reservist defenders of that bleak and terminal outpost did not raise their anti-air cannons in defiance, nor did they hail the craft over radio to ascertain their origins or intentions. No doubt they were already apprised of the shuttle's arrival and her passengers; but how Lord Vickerus had managed to do so, with a Republic Navy armada blockading the planet, Talia could not fathom. Nonetheless, he had successfully had a shuttle flown through that very Armada without even being hailed by Republic or League forces – the Force, Talia had long since come to realise, worked in mysterious ways. Ways she could not yet even begin to comprehend.

The shuttle set down on the twisted remains of what had been a landing pad employed during the siege to airlift in supplies and weapons to the beleaguered defenders. Or so it had been until, around the fortieth day of the siege, such missions of mercy had ceased to make it to atmosphere before falling prey to the guns of the Republic battlecruisers in orbit. Talia knew quite a bit of the history of this particular campaign, the latest in her master's obsessive quest to dominate and control the entire Ktsun system. Keeping apprised of current event in this far-flung and isolated region of Wildspace was as intrinsic to her studies as the philosophies and tenets of the Dark Side, and Master Vickerus made sure she wanted for no detail in the ongoing war effort.

As the engines powered down around her, Talia sucked in a deep breath and tried to steady her hands – she had only now, without the sluggish rumble of the shuttle through atmo, realised that she was trembling. But she did not know why. Her master nodded his large, grotesque head slowly, and they both slipped off their seatbelts as the exit hatch at the back of the passenger bay slid open with a hiss. The recycled air of the starship's artificial environment rushed out of the pressurised hold with a howl, allowing the warm, stale oxygen of Ktsun Minoris to attack Talia's senses. She almost coughed, but stopped herself doing so in front of her master. She could taste the blood in the air; hot and metallic on her tongue. A spark of electricity danced its way down her spine, and Talia had to fight to suppress a shiver and a moan of pleasure. _Malice is power_.

She followed her master down the exit ramp into the courtyard of the embattled community centre, the feeling of Dark Side energy that seeped from every pore of the planet's surface – watered in blood – giving her a sort of confidence now to face the mucky, bloodied faces of the reservists who gathered around the alighted shuttle. This was the last stop on her tour of the Ktsun System; her master's excuse to show off his new apprentice to the men and women of the Ktsun Unification Front. Officially, he was merely enjoying privileges granted to him by the Unification Front for being the chairman of the Ktsun Foundation for Peace, the charitable organisation that he himself had established some years ago. Unofficially, most of the officers of the Ktsun Unification Front knew, Lord Vickerus had established the foundation as a front to imbue himself with political power and stature in the nominally democratic Ktsun System, while simultaneously bankrolling the Ktsun Unification Front in an effort to unite the system under one government subjugated under him. Fewer officers still knew that fuelling his darkly cunning and subversive political mind was an innate and doctrinal devoutness to the Dark Side of the Force – that, now, he sought to imbue in Talia.

Outside the shuttle, master and apprentice were greeted by a Chiss officer in battle armour, a pistol strapped to his hip, straining to stand up straight and offer the two unlikely dignitaries a customary salute.

'My Lord Vickerus,' he said in a voice that was barely a wheeze. Talia noted an angry scar ringing his neck; clearly the man was no stranger to close-quarters combat. It had nearly cost him his life. 'Might I just say that it is an honour and a privilege to have you and your protégé among the valiant 33rd Reserve Infantry Squadron. If it had been up to me, however, I would have stressed that the both of you would have been safer staying away from this moon. We are at the very precipice of capitulation; and we may not be able to repel another attack, should it come. Should the enemy discover you are among us, I fear…'

Talia sensed a momentary flash of anger from her master, a spasm of annoyance at his will being questioned by a lowly officer. He hid it, however, and held up a hand for silence.

'You need not fear any longer, Commander Alaster,' Vickerus croaked slowly, 'for all your worries are soon to be addressed.' Alaster's eyes went wide, and his eyes flashed to Talia. She bit down on her tongue, straining not to let her face give anything away. She was on the strictest orders to remain entirely docile while on-planet; most of her study was done aboard the ship they were using to cruise the system. Out amongst the troops, however, she was to appear as Vickerus' "plus one" on the tour of the system afforded him by the Ktsun Unification Front. She was to pose as his servant; his secretary; his adopted daughter and heir; or his mistress, depending on the situation. It was hard at first for Talia to supress her better nature and bow in supplication to her ancient and dry master, but as the knowledge began to flow from him, and as she began to unlock the power of the Force inside of her, she realised that biting her tongue in his presence and putting up with his unbearable faux-mysterious demeanour was worth it for the pay off. She had no desire to follow in the footsteps of Lord Vickerus; she would learn all he had to teach her, and then she would be gone from his side like a thief in the night. Not all Dark Jedi could be so boring and self-important…or so she hoped. It was too early as of yet to tell. 'Assemble your men, Commander. I would address them personally.'

Alaster looked back to Vickerus, and he bowed his head. 'At once, my lord.'

When they were alone again, in the shadow of that monolith defiant against the macabre battleground around them, Vickerus turned to Talia. 'Now, my young apprentice, the next stage of my grand design shall be revealed. The pitiful defiance shown my wrath by the League and their Republic' – he _spat_ this word with such venom that Talia nearly recoiled in terror – 'allies will be swept away as one does an insignificant insect. After this day, my apprentice, this war may begin in earnest.' Talia held her tongue, knowing her place and knowing that she had not been privy to her master's most secretive plans. She did not know what was to transpire, nor what it would mean for her in the coming months. All she could do was sit back and watch, patiently, at events unfolded themselves – she hated being kept in the dark, but she reminded herself that such treatment was worth it. If this was the price she paid for the endless – godlike – power of the Dark Side, then by all means was it worth it. And should would not be sticking around for long after all of its secrets had been spilled to her by her narcissistically self-aggrandised master.

_Peace is a lie_. _There is only passion._

_ Through passion, I gain strength._

_ Through strength, I gain power._

_ Through power, I gain victory._

_ Through victory, my chains are broken_.

_The Force shall free me_.

The words continued to circle around Talia's head as they ascended a steel scaffold the reservists had erected leading to the roof of the rectangular bastion atop the stone pyramid. There, a team of snipers had set up a position overlooking the surrounding battlefield, and every few minutes they fired off a shot, sending a bolt of green laser into the thick fog surrounding the holdout. Alaster was not far behind.

'The troops are assembled, my lord,' he said, and hesitated before adding, 'if you intend to use the bastion as a platform, I should warn you that we can throw up deflector shields around the compound to avert incoming sniper fire but…we don't know if they'll last. I can promise you five minutes, tops, but after that they'll probably fail due to lack of power.' Vickerus nodded in understanding. 'My sniper teams will remain in position, to watch for advance patrols trying to pierce the deflector shields. Apologies my lord.'

'Far be it for me to interrupt the workings of your defences, Commander, there will soon be no need of such precautions. Make your men ready, I await your deference,' Vickerus' chalk-like voice grated through the grimly still air, tempering Talia's already nervous disposition. She made it to the top of the bastion and gasped, walking forwards from Vickerus and the Commander as she peered over the edge of the rectangle. Below, at the steps of the pyramid, the entire 33rd had assembled in a well dressed parade square, each trooper's legs splayed apart and arms folded behind his or her back. Talia swallowed at the sight in front of her. Even broken spirited and bloodied and filthy, the reserve forces of the Ktsun Unification Front still looked a fearsome spectacle.

Commander Alaster came to a halt beside her, snapping brisk straight, arms pinned to his sides. Talia heard him suck in a deep breath as Vickerus came up on her other shoulder, ignoring the two snipers who lay belly down at their feet.

'SQUADRON!' Alaster shouted, and Talia jumped at the sudden bestial roar that exploded from the Chiss' lungs. Immediately, in the square below, she saw the soldiers brace. 'SQUADRON, ATTEN-SHUN!' In one fluid movement, the troopers of the 33rd raised their right knees, and then brought it down with a single, loud CLAP as they came firmly down next to their left legs. Their arms, likewise, slid fluidly to their sides, and they now stood straight, chins held high with military pride. Alaster spun in a perfect ninety-degree angle so that he faced Talia and Lord Vickerus. He snapped up a salute, and then himself stood at ease. 'Over to you, my lord,' he said with a deep sigh, and Vickerus nodded at him, and then cast a look at Talia. She bowed her head – _always so proper, my _master_, always so proper_ – and stepped back a few paces, giving the Dark Jedi the primacy of the position atop the pyramid.

Alone now in the vision of the assembled troops, Vickerus lifted his arms to the heavens like a prophet preaching apocalypse. 'Men, women, soldiers of the victorious 33rd!' He shouted, but with his rasping death rattle he could command none of the authority that Alaster had, 'Your trial of blood is at an end! Relief has come at last, to rid this moon of the scourge of our enemies!' Talia's ears pricked up, and she looked over at her master, his back turned to her. Suddenly, ideas began to formulate in her mind. Realisations. This was not just the final stop on her tour of the military; her master had planned this for some time. Perhaps even before he had met her. 'As I stand before you now, know that the end of this siege – of this infernal blockade – is at hand! Battlegroup Korriban, the single greatest fleet in the entire Ktsun Unification Front, has massed at the Ktsun Relay staging point in preparation for the final phase of this campaign! Upon my word, they will launch into hyperspace and bear down upon the flotilla of ships that blockade this planet, and bring a fiery death to the enemy troops who still stalk the fields of this barren world!' Alaster, too, had broken protocol and was staring agape at the Pau'an lord. Noting the Commander's expression, Vickerus turned to him and said calmly, 'Order your men to attack with all remaining strength, Commander Alaster. The end…' he slipped a holocommunicator out of a fold in his robe and held it teasingly in front of the officer, '…is nigh for the League of Independent Worlds.'

Alaster stood aghast for several more seconds before, at length, nodding his head and snapping back to attention, spinning to face his assembled troops and roaring, at last, 'SQUADRON IS ORDERED TO INITIATE CONTACT ALL ALONG OPPOSING FORCE LINES! PLATOON COMMANDERS, MAKE READY FOR IMMEDIATE ADVANCE ALONG "M.S.R. ONDERON." DISMISSED.' At last released from the rigid demands of parade, the reservists of the 33rd let out a mighty roar, pumping their fists in the air, hailing Vickerus and Alaster, their saviours, after so long and so desperate a campaign.

Alaster bowed again to Vickerus, and then to Talia, and then excused himself, stammering something about having to have a word with his junior officers. This, Talia thought, must have seemed surreal to the young officer. Almost as surreal as it did for her. After so many weeks of study and basic training at the feet of her master, she was suddenly about to witness, first hand, a battle for control of an entire moon. Fear and excitement grappled at her heart, and she couldn't tell whether she enjoyed the notion or was repulsed by it. Again, as it had when their shuttle had first broken atmosphere, she felt the blood and the bones and the rotted flesh in the dirt of this place, and knew that every second she spent here made her stronger.

_Peace is a lie_.

She stepped up to be beside her master again just as he engaged the holocommunicator. Talia watched as a miniature blue figure in naval uniform shimmered into view on the tiny circular device Vickerus held in his hand, and saluted crisply at the Pau'an. 'My Lord Vickerus,' it said, voice crackling over the comm system, 'Battlegroup Korriban is yours to command.'

'As you say, Admiral,' Vickerus rattled, his voice now somehow hoarser having had to be heard amongst such a large body of men at once, 'execute Plan Starbreaker.'

'As you wish, my lord, it shall be done.' The figure shimmered out of view. Talia swallowed hard, and cast her eyes out over the battlefield – already, the deflector shield had been taken down, and the sniper team was looking more alert again, scanning the horizon for any sign of hostiles. Below the steps of the great pyramid, the reservists of the 33rd had split into platoons and those platoons, in turn, into their respective squads and fireteams. They massed about the low-standing, shattered walls of the compound now, bristling with weaponry, waiting for the command to go over the top and meet the enemy head on. After so long stuck behind a wall being bombarded by artillery strikes from orbit, Talia mused, this must have been blissful to some.

Blissful to some, but terrifying to others, no doubt. She did not know which was the more likely. And she did not know if it was the prerogative of the Dark Side to differentiate between the two.

_Peace is a lie_.

A great warcry sprung up from the men and women of the 33rd, and then, as one body, Talia saw them hop over the ruins of the compound's wall, charging madly into the fog that engorged the battlefield. They bellowed and shouted as they ran, and in an instant the world around the compound erupted into flashes of red, blue and green as laser bolts criss-crossed around the battlefield, melting away the fog. The first units of reservists hit the dirt, finding cover in shell craters or behind corpses or displaced sandbags, firing from the advantage of defilade. Though Talia could not see the Republic and League forces – still obscured as they were in eerie fog – she could tell the sudden attack had caught them unawares. While the forces of the 33rd sent an endless stream of fire in the direction of the enemy lines, only a few pot shots were returned, obviously as the enemy struggled to mount a formidable defence. They had had the upper hand for so long that they had not expected to have to defend themselves at a moment's notice.

As Talia watched from on high, the first of the 33rd's troops took hits, and went down, screaming out in pain as the laser bolts ripped through their armour and flesh, setting cloth and hair afire as they cut through skin and bone. A shiver ran up Talia's spine. The suffering, the agony, the horror of those fallen in battle…it was delectable. Their screams echoed around her mind, charging like electricity through her veins. Talia knew that she should feel disgust at herself, revelling in the pain and misfortune of those slain in combat, but the sensation that it unlocked in her was simply overwhelming. She couldn't get enough of it – she wanted more, to wade in amongst the soldiers of both sides and deal out death and unholy destruction on a whim, to be the _cause_ of such suffering and pain, to see the agony on her victims' faces as the life was extinguished from their bodies…

…Talia bit down on her tongue as a spasm of burning hot fire licked at the pit of her stomach. She was here masquerading as nothing more than Vickerus' young confidante, and, more to the point, she was unarmed and still had no _real_ level of conscious control over the dark powers that inhabited her body. If she jumped from the platform they were both standing on and stepped onto that battlefield, she'd be dead before she could even begin to enjoy herself. No. She would have to wait. Talia ground her teeth, irritated at her own rationalisation. _Peace is a lie_, she told herself. _There is only passion_!

Before she could act, there came a deep rumble from the heavens that shook the very foundations of the pyramid. Talia had to stretch out her arms to keep herself from being knocked off-balance by the tremors. She cast her eyes upwards, looking for the source of the sound, and gasped in shock and awe.

Flashes of white and blue and red flickered across the clouds like lightning, the great crashing sound she had heard getting louder and more rhythmic. As she watched, there was an explosion – visible as it cut through the cloud cover overhead – and suddenly the sky was filled with dozens upon dozens of small single-seater starfighters, blazing down fire upon the battlefield below. They were of such a multitude, that black metal swarm, that their numbers darkened the very skies themselves – from their approach vector to the planet they blotted out the entire sun, until all that was left were the flashes from their laser cannons and engines. Talia watched, a smile spreading across her face, as the fighters swooped low over the heads of the 33rd reservists – who hailed them with whoops and hollering – and bore down upon the enemy, lasers flashing through the gloom. There was the sound of explosions in the distance, and more cheers, and the reserve forces pushed forwards through the fog, the tide of battle now swinging wildly in their favour with the arrival of their naval contingent.

Talia looked over at her master. A smile had spread across the ancient Pau'an's face, much to her surprise. She had never seen Vickerus smile before this. A low, haunting cackle spilled from his lipless mouth, and he clapped his hands together in almost boyish glee. 'At last, my young apprentice,' he cackled slowly, 'you are witnessing the full might of the Ktsun System, unleashed in all its fury against the League!' Talia turned her attention back to the battle still being raged. The 33rd had disappeared through the wall of fog now, the only evidence of their existence being the flashes of light that coloured the fog and, in the distance, the screams of men and bursting of laser fire.

As she watched, the heavens screamed in vengeance, and giant warships began to descend slowly from the skies like humongous steel dragons. Frigates, supply vessels, landing craft…all of them floated calmly down to Ktsun Minoris' surface, all bearing the mark of the Ktsun Unification Front, all bearing scars of battle. No doubt, Battlegroup Korriban had smashed the joint Republic and League armada that had for so long held the small moon under siege – now that siege was broken, and every man and woman who crewed the ships in orbit had likely perished in the cold and unforgiving void of space.

The first of the landing craft touched down, and fresh troops – regular military, not reservist weekend warriors – began to spill out, their armour shiny and unbloodied, weapons fully loaded for bear. Vickerus, without uttering a word, did an about turn and began to descend the scaffolding to the courtyard below, where their shuttle still nestled on its makeshift landing pad. Talia watched from a distance as he greeted the senior officer of one of the newly-alighted starships, who barked orders to the assembled fresh arrivals to take off and follow their reservist brethren into the thick of battle. It did not last long after that. From what Talia gathered, the Republic and League force quickly surrendered when they realised the blockade had been broken, and their leaders were brought before Vickerus – who promptly ordered their executions, to wails of horrified despair from those made prisoner.

As the din of battle died down, and the last holdouts in the area were rooted out and destroyed unceremoniously, the men of the 33rd dropped their packloads and took a well-deserved break, while the fresh arrivals set about the arduous task of consolidating their surroundings. Talia stepped past cookfires, hastily-erected tents and platoon sergeants making roll-calls of what remained of their units. She found her master overseeing a briefing amongst the senior officers who had landed on the planet, and were conversing with the very same admiral, still over holocommunicater, who Vickerus had contacted minutes prior. Talia assumed him to be the officer in command of Battlegroup Korriban, and so out of respect for him and her master, she stayed back while the briefing was concluded. After that the officers dispersed to go about their various duties, and Vickerus himself set off to congratulate the survivors of the 33rd in a post-victory speech. He dismissed her with a wave of a hand; a symbol of no uncertain terms that she was released from his side for the moment. Talia stood a while in the camp; the smells of freshly cooked food mingling not unpleasantly with the coppery smell of newly spilled blood. She considered joining a group of soldiers around a nearby cookfire, who were joking and laughing now as if on holiday on Alderaan and not sitting on a field of battle they had just fought tooth and nail to survive, but before she could make up her mind another thought – overwhelming her senses – overcame her. Talia stepped away and slipped out of the camps, away from the sights and sounds and smells of an army enjoying victory.

She walked and walked and walked, until all the sound of the camp had died away, and she was alone with the tangled and matted and bloated and mutilated corpses of the war dead, and there, she stopped.

Talia slipped smoothly to her knees, and bowed her head. There was nothing around her but silence and death and the smell of blood and rotting flesh. And it _empowered her_. The aftermath of battle, surrounded by so many slain, was like a drug coursing through her veins. She sat and she meditated, flooding her mind with images of Jana and Tami and the twins and the colony at Hyburn, and what had befallen each and every one of its inhabitants, until her entire body trembled with rage. Her heart smashed against her ribcage like a deranged prisoner trying to tunnel his way free, and her breathing came quick, and deep, and full of malice. _Malice_. How the word rolled off her tongue. Her anger over what had been done to her colony – her hatred for those who had perpetrated it – how she suffered with grief over the loss of her best friend – it all fuelled her. It all fed the beast that stirred now within the pit of her stomach, rearing its giant head and screaming a bloody vengeance upon the galaxy. As Talia focused inwards, drawing all black thoughts and dark passions to her, she felt the air heat up around her body. Her mind strayed for just a moment – she thought of her brother – but she furrowed her brow and brought it forcefully back to the present, to her anger, to her raging emotion, to her _passion_.

_Through passion, I gain strength._

_ Through strength, I gain power._

_ Through power, I gain victory._

_ Through victory, my chains are broken._

She felt her veins popping up along her arms and on her neck as the air around her started to sizzle and crackle with the heat her body was given off. At the tantric height of meditation on the Dark Side of the Force, her body was as a furnace, scalding to the touch. Trickles of sweat slipped down her brow, only to evaporate to steam as they left the relative cool of her hair. Talia opened her mouth to suck in a deep breath, but the air turned hot as ash in her mouth. She smacked her lips together, saliva turning gummy and clammy to the taste, and tried to swallow to quench her suddenly parched throat. When all this failed, she opened her eyes slowly, and found that she saw only red.

Inches away from where she meditated, a young boy had fallen, garbed in the black armour of the Ktsun Unification Front and clutching desperately at a rifle. His blue eyes stared blankly up at the sky, a wisp of sandy-coloured hair framing his boyish good looks. Talia studied him intensely, not releasing her primal grip on the Force. She wondered who he was, and where he had come from, and how fiercely he had made love and how passionately he waged war. She wondered if he would be missed – would friends mourn his absence, would a girl bewail an empty bed? She wondered if he even believed in what they had been fighting for. What the Ktsun Unification Front stood for. _Peace_, her master would say to the assembled men and women he was now congratulating. The Ktsun Foundation for Peace was one step closer to realising its dream.

_Peace is a lie_.

Did he realise that, before the end? That he fought not for his homeland or his family, but at the petty whim of her master? Did any of the others scattered around him know it? Talia snorted in contempt. _Peace is a lie_. _There is only passion_. Overtaken by some insane resolve, Talia reached out her hand, and caressed his face. His skin was icy cold to the touch, but the heat billowing from every inch of her body brought a touch of colour back into his cheeks. Talia recoiled in horror; it was creepy, seeing the boy so lifelike all of a sudden. But then she steeled herself, and reached out to touch him again.

On the boy's belly, not half an inch from where she imagined his navel to be, a deep, dark crimson wound glistened sickeningly in the sunlight. It was fresh, the battle having only ended minutes before, and glistened wetly under Talia's gaze. She swallowed, and again found that she could not. Shaking, unsure of herself and yet determined to see the sudden madness that gripped her through to its conclusion, she reached out a hand and dipped a single finger into the pool of blood. It was cool to the touch, but it lifted from its owner without a hassle. Talia brought her finger closer to her face for inspection, gazing longingly at the smear of red blood across her print. She hesitated for a moment – but only a moment – and then opened her mouth, her tongue lolling erotically out as she touched it to her finger, and licked it clean.

A sudden scream exploded in Talia's mind, and she was shaken violently from her state of meditation. She screamed herself, and threw her hands up over her ears, but it did her no use. She could _hear_ the boy in her head, his soul screaming in agony as it relieved the horrifying pain of his final moments perpetually. He felt her within her, stirring, squirming, uncomfortable in her female body and yet desperate to cling on; desperate to experience life again. She felt his pain and his horror and his fear and his loneliness; she felt _him_, every inch of his body, as if he was standing naked before her, and she nurtured every single moment of it. She took him inside her and caressed him and consumed him and was him. Finally, when the screams got too much to bear, and her throat had almost ripped itself apart from to keep up, Talia resorted to the one recourse left her – in primal, unthinking rage she punched at the ground with a fist, desperate to dispel the sensation – and that boy – from her mind. There was an explosion, and Talia felt a sudden surge of hot wind blow through her hair and explode outwards from her, taking all of her pent up aggression and emotion and _passion_ with it. There was an earth-shattering roar, and Talia's ears popped and rang painfully.

Suddenly, it was all over.

Suddenly there was silence, and emptiness, and Talia felt drained. She slumped forwards onto all fours, exhaustion suddenly overcoming her. She opened her eyes slowly, ears still ringing.

She found herself in the middle of a giant crater that bore into the surface of the moon, sweeping away all the corpses of the dead and their scattered and mangled weapons in its wake. Blasting them into oblivion. She crouched alone in the midst of a giant inverted dome of dirt, sweeping away from her like the edifice of an explosion. Talia swallowed as she began to cool down and regain control of herself. She realised, with a glorious mixture of horror and devilish delight, that _she_ had done this. This was the climax of her meditation – a violent, destructive orgasm of her dalliance with the Dark Side of the Force. Talia picked herself back up onto her knees, and gazed around in wonderment.

_So this_, she thought to herself in abject amazement, _is the true power of the Dark Side_.

There was a familiar sensation at the back of her skull, and she twisted around to see her master, Lord Vickerus, standing on the precipice of the crater, a proud smile splitting his alien features.

Clutched under one arm, she saw, her master carried two electroblade training swords, and she realised as he began to descend into the crater towards her that he meant for her to practise her swordplay. She stood up, and bowed deeply to him, body still trembling in disbelief at what she had accomplished.

'I feel remiss, my young apprentice,' Vickerus rasped, 'that while on our tour of the Ktsun System I have had little time to instruct you other than in simple prompts and philosophical quandaries for you to muse on your own. It would appear,' he stopped, and gestured around the pit they now found themselves in, 'that you have been the model student in my absence as a teacher. The Dark Side of the Force is strong with you, Talia. You will become a powerful Sith one day.'

Talia's eyes went wide, and she faltered where she stood. She couldn't believe she had just heard her master say what he had. 'S-Sith?' she stammered. 'But…I thought you were a Jedi turned exile…' A low cackle emanated from the Pau'an, and he tossed one of the electroblades through the air. Talia caught it nimbly, and twisted it about in her hand. The device was a blunt melee weapon employed, so she had been told, by the Jedi to train their younglings in lightsaber combat without the dangers inherent in actually wielding one – a weapon notoriously difficult to operate safely and effectively. When activate, a powerful pulse of electricy ran up the length of the steel blade, delivering a violent and potent shock to anybody and anything it hit. This trained the student to treat it as if it was a real lightsaber, and to avoid its bite with as much vehemence as they would in actual lightsaber combat. Talia swallowed hard, not understanding. Vickerus, his own electroblade in hand, sat down upon the dirt at the centre of the crater, folding his legs. Talia did the same. She could sense a lecture coming on.

'And I did not lie to you, Talia Sa'Ran,' he said quietly. 'For many centuries ago, mere years after I had attained my knighthood in the Jedi Order, I left of my own free will and with the consent of my masters. They disapproved of the research I undertook into the Dark Side of the Force, and were uncomfortable with my continuing in their order. And so I left, to study alone, in self-perpetuated exile, which became admittedly easier once my father's estate and lordship passed over to me. I had near-infinite resources to pursue my interests at my leisure.'

'…And that is when you discovered the stories of the Sith?' Talia ventured. Her master shook his head.

'No, my dear. That is when I _returned_ to the Jedi Order.' Talia raised an eyebrow, not following the narrative at all, and Vickerus continued. 'What know you of the Dark Wars?'

Talia wracked her brain. She knew most of what everybody else knew from HoloNet documentaries and popular half-truths, but she was far from an expert on the subject. 'They were two hundred years ago,' she answered slowly, 'a series of conflicts that ended up defeating the Sith once and for all. The Republic and the Jedi vanquished them, but in doing so were almost destroyed themselves.'

Across from her, her master smiled. 'You know more than most, and yet nothing at all,' he said, and Talia ground her teeth. Vickerus' holier-than-thou approach to everything dug into her nerves at times. 'The Dark Wars began with a cataclysmic conflict known as the Mandalorian Wars. Mandalore the Ultimate, seeking new battles to harden his warrior clans, led armies of what he dubbed the "Neo-Crusaders" in a brutal war effort against worlds outside Republic space. The most brutal of these conflicts was the Cathar Genocide, where, at the hands of the Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders, the entire Cathar species was hunted to practical extinction.' Talia suppressed a sigh; she had never had any interest in history, but she wasn't about to interrupt her master. 'While the good people of the galaxy looked on in revulsion and terror at the atrocities being committed in Mandalore's name, the Jedi refused to get involved. Had they taken a stand, had they stood for justice as they claim so self-righteously to do so, they could have saved the Cathar species. They could have changed the entire course of galactic history. But it was not to be. The Jedi sat silent in their ivory tower while an entire planet was put to flame, every man, woman and child killed brutally and without mercy.' Vickerus spat, and Talia could feel the hatred seeping from him in a white-hot aura. 'The Jedi revealed themselves for what they truly were then and there. Power-mad, dogmatic monks who exist only to serve themselves. They act only when it suits their own needs. Had I not left the Order some years before, I would almost certainly have done so then.

'But it was not to be so simple,' Vickerus continued, 'because some Jedi _did_ stand up for what was right. When their masters were crippled by inaction, a few brave men and women left the Order – on threat of excommunication – to form a group of crusaders who dubbed themselves the Revanchists.' The word stirred something in the recesses of Talia's memory; a name half-whispered, half-remembered. 'The Jedi Council was forced to reluctantly give them official sanction, because of the huge numbers of young padawans and knights who flocked to the banner of their two charismatic leaders – Alek and his master, a man who came in time to be known only as Revan, for the movement that he started. It was Alek who came to me, knowing of my exile years before from the Order, and who sold me on the righteousness of the Revanchist cause – I signed on with the crusaders, and we travelled together out of Republic space to the front lines of the Mandalorian Wars, and there, we overthrew the fears of an entire galaxy.

'We left as heroes; we returned as conquerors.'

_Revan_. Talia remembered now where she had heard that name before. 'Revan…_Darth_ Revan…' she whispered, strangely enraptured by her master's tale, '…he was the saviour of the Republic.'

Again, Vickerus smiled, but now there was a spark of sorrow in his eyes. 'So you do know more than you let on!' he commented. 'Yes, Revan, in time, would go on to save the Republic. For after we had overthrown Mandalore the Ultimate, the truth of what we had done – what we had been _forced to do_ by Jedi incompetence – dawned on our leaders. Revan and Alek returned from the final confrontations of the war changed men; they dubbed themselves Darth Revan and Darth Malak respectively, and proclaimed that the Revanchists were now no longer Jedi, but Sith. The Jedi had been revealed for the corrupt and malicious plague upon the galaxy that they truly were, and it was the destiny of the Sith to overthrow them. To bring peace and unity to the galaxy all too often shattered by the machinations of the vainglorious Jedi. And so we returned to the Republic as conquerors in the Jedi Civil War – the Revanchists versus the tired old slaves of Jedi dogma. We had all but succeeded in our war against the Jedi when Revan – our spiritual leader and our greatest general – betrayed his own apprentice, and slew Darth Malak.' Vickerus sighed deeply, and Talia could sense her master's deep melancholy. 'Without a leader, the Revanchists fell to infighting – what history now records as the Sith Civil War – and allowed what remained of the shattered and near-death Jedi Order to pick us off one at a time, and overthrow us utterly. Revan betrayed the Revanchists, and in doing so secured the vile supremacy of the Jedi over the galaxy for two hundred years hence.

'I am the last of that pure race. I am the last of the Revanchists, and I carry the legacy of the Sith in my heart.'

Talia felt a cold shiver tickle at her, and she shuddered under the cold stare of her master. She had had no idea of his background; and understood the gravity of his words as he recounted his history to her. He was the last Revanchist, yes; but by taking her on as an apprentice, the legacy of the Sith was _hers_ to carry. She swallowed hard, and felt that, once again, she was trembling.

Lord Vickerus sighed again, and stood up, weighing his electroblade in his hand and then activating it – with a spurt, electricity shot over the blade of the weapon, and crackled and hummed in the still air. 'But enough history lessons for one day,' he said suddenly, 'you are my apprentice, and it is my duty to train you, that the Sith teachings may survive.' Talia stood up, and activated her own training blade. 'I trust in your studies you have not neglected your swordplay; I would spar with you now, and see how far you have come along since our first lessons together.'

Talia nodded determinedly, slipping into the fighting stance of the Juyo Form; the martial art practised by her master, and the one that he had instructed her in prior to their tour of the system. Across from her, Vickerus took up the same stance, and they stood still, Talia waiting with baited breath for her master to move, a slight smile creasing Vickerus' lips.

All of a sudden, with a yell, Vickerus surged forwards, twirling his electroblade over his head and bringing it crashing down on Talia, who brought her own sword up on defence at the very last second, and started immediately retreating. He followed up with a series of blows that sent shockwaves through Talia's arms, and she continued her retreat, gasping already with exertion and searching desperately for a weakness in her master's offence that she could exploit and attack. Beneath her feet the crater began to slope upwards, and she realised that he was driving her up against the sheer wall of the edifice; she turned, curling away to the right so that she and her master traded places, he still on the offensive, she still desperately only just managing to parry each blow a it rained down upon her.

Her arms screamed for a reprieve against the stunning speed with which Vickerus delivered his attacks; her brain raced, desperate to find and exploit a mistake or over-reach by her master; and her heart sank as she realised he was exposing no such thing. His mastery of the Juyo lightsaber form was absolute; his dedication to the martial art all-consuming. She could find no respite from his blistering offensive barrage, nor could she…

…Vickerus gave a yell and thrust the palm of his hand forwards, sending a powerful wave of Dark Force energy slamming into her chest and sending Talia flying off her feet towards the crater wall behind her, which she hit with a thump and a moan, dropping her weapon and falling to all fours. Ahead of her, she heard her master switch off his training sword. She had been soundly and quickly defeated; the lesson was over.

'_Never_ let down your Force defences, Talia,' he admonished her. 'Your enemies will always be probing for any sign of weakness; if you are not mindful of the Force, they will use that lax to destroy you.' Talia sat up on her knees, and bowed her head in shame. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. She had thought she'd been getting quite good at Juyo; she had not expected to be so quickly and easily dispatched.

'I am sorry, my master – I will take your advice to heart.'

Vickerus stood over her, his tall and gaunt frame covering her in shadow. He fired up his electroblade again. 'Every lesson must be learnt in blood,' he said, 'that you may never forget it. A Sith does not show mercy. A Sith must _never_ show mercy.'

He brought the pulsing electrical blade slamming down on Talia's head.

She let out a stifled scream.


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER TEN**

"**Apprentice of the Sith"**

Talia sat cross-legged on her bed, eyes closed, drawing the darkness in around her. Her heart pounded; her veins bulged in her arms and neck; the air around her hissed and crackled. As she sat meditating on the Dark Side of the Force, she recited the Sith Code over and over again in her head.

_Peace is a lie. There is only passion._

_ Through passion, I gain strength._

_ Through strength, I gain power._

_ Through power, I gain victory._

_ Through victory, my chains are broken._

_ The Force shall free me._

They were words penned well over three thousand years prior by Sorzus Syn, one of the original Dark Jedi who had been exiled from the Order, and instead sought refuge on the uncharted world of Korriban – the homeworld of the ancient Sith. There, she and her Dark Jedi cohorts were worshipped as gods, and enslaved the local alien species and went on to rule the planet for millennia. For thousands of years the Sith and their Dark Jedi overlords studied the mysteries of the Dark Side, free from Jedi dogma and control, and unlocked its innumerable secrets and the power at its heart.

Now, three thousand years after the Great Schism that had wrought the Jedi Order asunder into two rival sects, the Sith lived on – a name now carried by the scions of that dark legacy, the acolytes of the Dark Side of the Force.

Talia had reconciled with her mantle as Apprentice of the Sith quite well. She had been initially stunned by her master's revelation of his indoctrination into the Sith teachings at the hands of Revan and Malak, but in time she had grown to accept it. She despised her overbearing and self-righteous master, Lord Vickerus, but she saw the truth in his words. She knew of the Cathar Genocide, of course – everyone knew of it. It was the darkest hour of the entire Mandalorian conflict, a ghost story told to children to portray the Mandalorians as the devilish monsters the galaxy knew them to be. She had _not_, however, known about the Jedi's incompetence and inability to act in time, incompetence that led to the formation of the Revanchists and the crusade to defeat Mandalore the Ultimate. What Revan and Malak had set out to do – to overthrow the Republic and bring the decadent Jedi Order crashing down – was not only _right_, but _imperative_. Revan's betrayal, then, was unforgivable, and as she meditated, she focused on that betrayal, letting the anger consume her, feeling the air grow hot around her, feeling the power in her veins continue to grow.

Talia released her anger in a primal roar that shook the walls of the room around her. Gradually, she felt her emotion receding, the air begin to cool as she let go of the passions she had been building up. She relaxed, slowing her breathing and bringing her mind back to the present, then opened her eyes.

Talia's room was grand, as grand as the manor Lord Vickerus called his home. It was large, larger than her whole apartment back on Nar Shadaa, with a walk-in wardrobe with more glamorous outfits than she could ever have dreamed of as a little girl. They were light to wear to suit the climate of a planet as close to the sun as Nicis, Vickerus' home, and, in keeping with noble fashions of this system, revealed a lot more flesh than Talia would have liked. The sweeping glances she sometimes caught her master giving her when she wore one of the outfits made her skin crawl, but she was not about to be rid of them. They were no doubt expensive – at some point in the future, they would sell for quite a bundle of credits. Her bed was a four-poster kingsize set against the far wall, a glorious and lush design with a red satin duvet and more pillows than Talia had ever seen in one place in her life. Its headboard stood out, and for hours she had studied it, trying to work out what it was. It was a frieze of some sort, ornately carved from the same wood as the posts on the bed itself. It depicted a battle of some kind, though from when or where, her master had not told her. At the foot of the bed, standing in the centre of the room, was her own personal fountain and pond, which she could switch off at night for peace and quiet but found she seldom did. The sound of trickling water relaxed her – meditating on the Dark Side and keeping her passions and emotions at full force was exhausting, and there were times she liked to simply shut down that aspect of her being and just be Talia again, and eat junk food and watch HoloVids and listen to music.

Those moments were getting fewer and further between, however. Vickerus had, since the end of their tour of the Ktsun System, given Talia the complete freedom of his extensive library, where over his centuries of life, both before and after the Dark Wars, he had amassed a considerable wealth of Dark Side texts and artefacts. Even just glancing through them, Talia was aware that to fully understand the Dark Side, to unlock its full potential, would take a lifetime of study. She no longer had time in her daily routine for leisure, between studying in the library; attending on her master; carrying out his orders around Nicis; completing the occasional assignments – _assignments_, Talia would have spat, _like a kriffing college student_! – Vickerus would set her to do; revising Sith and galactic history until she could rattle off facts, dates, names and key battles at will; meditating on the Dark Side; practising her fledgling command of the Force and – of course – lightsaber training. The latter was something of a sore spot for Talia, and as she sat on her bed, she massaged the muscles in her arm, which were still stiff and sore from yesterday's practise session. She could wield the electroblade with moderate competence; with exceptional skill is how your average swordsman would have described her. But "exceptional skill" from the point of view of a swordsman was pitiful in the eyes of a Sith Lord, her master had chided her. The Sith and the Jedi used the Force to influence and control their actions; seeing milliseconds into the future and so empowering their reflexes to react quicker than any other living creatures possibly could. Talia had yet to master the strange dichotomy between fluid physical movements and constant connection to the Living Force – how one could be focused on fighting with a sword AND on drawing the Force inwards at the same time, she had yet to understand.

Because of this, every sparring session with Lord Vickerus since Ktsun Minoris had ended in much the same way – Vickerus disarming Talia, using either the Force or through superior swordsmanship, and defeating her pulling no blows. Every defeat, and every humiliating admonishment by the old man burned in Talia's gut, and yet she couldn't reconcile the all-consuming anger and hatred she felt when she meditated alone and the adrenaline-soaked rush of physical combat. How did the Sith combine the two? How did they allow their anger and passions to flow so freely into their lightsabers, and guide their movements without even thinking about it?

Talia sighed, and rolled off her bed. She was taking a break from practising her Juyo swordplay today, best not to dwell on it and let it control her. She slipped on some loose-fitting clothes (none of the elegant finery on display in her wardrobe today, she decided) and left her room, padding down the dark hallway outside in bare feet. Around her, her finely-tuned sense tingled with information, enhanced and sharpened by the Force; a protocol droid was powering up in the machine room above her head; the kitchen staff were busy beneath her feet preparing that evening's dinner; the guards on the perimeter of the manor grounds were at the changing of the watch; and her master, Vickerus, was entertaining a host of Ktsun Unification Front officers in the boardroom, around the holocommunicator. She no longer consciously registered these sensations; she just knew it, innately, as one knows that they are hot or cold or hungry or tired. She had learned to trust in the Force, and let it guide her and flow through her at all times.

_Just not when fighting with an electroblade_, a voice in her head whispered, and Talia growled and tried to put it out of mind as she descended a servants' staircase to the back entrance of the great library.

The library inhabited the central chamber of the manor, a thin, tall construct three stories high and packed floor to high vaulted ceiling with both hardcopy books – of those texts too ancient to have a digital format – as well as bank after bank of digital holobooks on topics ranging from everything from hyperspace travel to ancient history to droid maintenance, podracing, culinary pursuits, philosophy, mathematics, galactic geography and, of course, the Great Mysteries of the Force. Stored in glass cases about the beautifully ornate oaken room were various artefacts of the ancient Sith, from a sword that Vickerus had claimed once belonged to an ancient Dark Lord of the Sith, Ludo Kressh, to various ancient Jedi and Sith holocrons. The Jedi holocrons were left out in the open for Talia to use at her own discretion, delving into aspects of the Force and studying to her heart's content. The Sith holocrons, however, were locked away, to Talia's great umbrage. She could not shake the feeling that, in his training of her, Vickerus was only feeding her what he felt she absolutely needed to know, and otherwise holding her back from getting too powerful, too fast. Talia sighed and tried to shake the feeling off.

The protocol droid who managed the library for her master, AD-T45, shuffled its way awkwardly over to Talia as she entered. Talia smiled faintly at the green-coated droid, and slumped down into a wooden chair by a computer terminal and fired it up.

'Mistress Talia ma'am,' the protocol droid inflected in a feminine voice, 'what can I do for you today?'

'Give me the holobook I was reading last time, Aydee,' Talia said, drumming her fingers on her chin. The droid went still for a moment, and Talia heard a low whirring sound as it accessed its memory banks. Then Aydee was moving again, and it looked back over at Talia, golden lightbulbs for eyes flashing.

'Ahh, yes,' Aydee said, 'A History of the Revanchist Movement, an Updated Edition Featuring Additional Commentary on the Dark Wars, written by Doctor Amelia Wren, Professor Adan Alanis and Jedi Knight Selena Sunrider. Right away, ma'am.' Aydee shuffled away slowly, and was back minutes later clutching a thin holobook between its metallic fingers, glowing blue faintly with the power that coursed through it. Talia accepted it from the droid and smiled warmly.

'Thanks, Aydee, that'll be all.'

'My pleasure, Mistress Talia,' Aydee said before wandering off to tend to some other corner of the library.

Talia watched the droid waddle away, then turned her attention back to the computer terminal, and slid the holobook into its slot on the side. The screen flickered, and then was replaced with the title of the book she had just inserted. She manipulated the touchpad controls, sliding through the contents page, and then activated the search feature.

A small rectangular box popped up on screen, awaiting her input. Talia hesitated, then typed in the word _Revan_. The computer whirred, and then replaced the box with another, claiming that there were over 500 instances of that word in the selected text, and asking her if she wanted to specify her search further. Talia thought for a moment, then exited the search feature and brought up another dialogue box, a "Go To" feature, and typed in _Sith Civil War_. There was another whirring sound, and then the screen started to flash as the computer scrolled rapidly down all the pages of the holobook to get to what she was looking for. Her master had, unlike the Mandalorian Wars and the Jedi Civil War, not fought on the frontlines of the Sith Civil War that rounded off the three Dark Wars. As such, he had never gone into great detail about what had transpired to lead the Revanchists to their final destruction. The question now nagged at Talia; how could the Sith, whose mastery of the Force was so superior to the pitiful selective teachings of the Jedi, and whose potency in battle was akin to war made manifest, be overthrown by the very Republic they had just brought to their knees in a surprise invasion? It made no sense to Talia. She was no military tactician, but logic dictated that – even taking Revan's betrayal of Darth Malak into account – the Revanchists should have succeeded in their cleansing war against the Jedi. How, then, did they fail?

Talia scanned through the text quickly, skipping over the boring details of fleet logistics, numbers on both sides, dates, battles, important Galactic Senate sessions…eventually, she found what she was looking for. She settled into her chair to read.

…_infighting that wracked Korriban and the remnants of Revan's empire at large, the Revanchists splintered apart into innumerable feuding factions, each proclaiming their own sovereignty and legitimacy as the true legacy of the Revanchist movement. The most powerful of these factions was the Sith Triumvirate._

ARTICLE 2c

_Two Sith Lords had risen from the ashes of the Revanchists, Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion, as rivals for power and heirs apparent to Revan and Darth Malak. Controlling the bulk of the remaining Sith forces between them, the two Dark Lords eventually came under the thumb of exiled Jedi Knight-turned-Sith, Darth Traya. She reorganised the fractured empire into a Triumvirate, personified in her as Dark Lord and her two apprentices Nihilus and Sion._

_In time, however, her apprentices joined their powers to overthrow Traya and sever her connection to the Force. Casting her out of the Triumvirate, Nihilus and Sion took control of the empire between them, and forced Darth Traya into exile where she would take the fledgling young Jedi Knight Meetra Surik under her wing _(SEE: "The End of the Conflict," Ch. 57 Article 4f).

_Like they had done their master, however, the two Sith Lords eventually turned on each other and divided their forces between themselves. This made it possible for the shattered Republic Navy to slowly take back pockets of Sith space from the fractured Revanchists, slowly overrunning smaller holdings and sovereign star systems until the fall of Darth Sion and Darth Nihilus at the hands of Meetra Surik._

_ The final campaign of the Sith Civil War was fought between a hitherto-unknown faction of Revanchists known as the "Redeemed," who, unbeknownst to most in the Republic, had…_

Talia stopped reading.

She furrowed her brow and steepled her fingers, gazing over the text again. There was a nervous flutter in her stomach that she couldn't shake, and rereading the computer screen only made it worse. _How_ could the Revanchists have been so stupid, she asked herself? Revan betrayed Malak, yes; but the war effort was far from doomed on that token alone. The Revanchists were already winning the war by that point – they had carpet bombed Taris into oblivion only months prior to the betrayal. It took an entire star fleet to carry out such an operation – they had proved they had the resources. Why did the Sith feel the need to turn on each other? And not just once, as Revan had Malak. But again, and again, and again, and again. All over Revanchist space, divisions and usurpations. Then the one stable government that had risen from the anarchy – the Triumvirate – was cast down when its leader was overthrown by her two apprentices. And then _those_ apprentices turned on _each other_, making it easier for _their master_ to, in turn, _turn back on them_.

Talia felt as if she wanted to scream.

Was this the fallacy of all Sith? Betrayal, usurpation, treachery? How could any Sith hope to take vengeance against the Republic and their self-righteous Jedi masters when they couldn't even refrain from plunging their sabers into their own backs? Talia buried her head in her hands, her head spinning. Betrayal was the bane of all Sith – starting with Revan's betrayal of Malak, and only ending when the Revanchists had been utterly purged from the galaxy by the bloodthirsty Jedi.

Talia felt suddenly she had lost the will to continue her research. Was such a thing inescapable? Power and passion were the hallmarks of the Sith, the gift of the Dark Side. By their very nature, they led to treachery and betrayal. Was such a thing unavoidable for the Sith? Would they always have to fear the allure of even greater power fuelled by rampant passions?

'Mistress Talia, ma'am…' Aydee had waddled back over, though Talia had not noticed, so lost in thought as she was. 'Master Vickerus requests your presence in the boardroom at once.'

Talia hesitated, still staring at the screen, and then sighed and slid out the holobook. She handed it back to Aydee. 'Thanks, Aydee, I'll go right up.' She swallowed, and shook the crushing negativity from her head. 'You can put that back now.'

'Very good, ma'am,' Aydee said as Talia brushed past her and out of the main doors of the library.

The hallways were dark and empty as Talia padded through them, the carpet warm and comfy on the soles of her bare feet. She had, at first, been daunted by the maze of labyrinthine corridors and rooms that made up the mansion but, in time, had realised that by letting the Force guide her she could find her way to anywhere she needed to go – even if she'd never visited that part of the house before. The boardroom was one such place. She didn't know where it was, but she could feel the tingle of life pulsing from it nonetheless – her master, unmistakably tainted by dark power, and the collected generals and admirals of the Ktsun Unification Front. She found her way to the floor – the highest storey of the manor, where only her master's room and his offices were located – and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the assembled guardsman outside, receiving their orders from the sergeant in command of their detail.

'_Kalen_?' Talia said, surprised at the smile that broke across her features when she saw him. She suddenly remembered herself as the four men turned to stare at her, and she coughed nervously. 'Sergeant Jaska?'

Kalen Jaska grinned broadly at her, and shook his head slightly. 'Alright, patrol,' he said to the other three around him, 'you have your orders. You're dismissed.' The three men exchanged looks and then shuffled past Talia quietly, staring at her in interest. She waited with baited breath until they were gone, then flashed her smile back at Kalen. She _was_ legitimately pleased to see him. He'd been kind to her when the Ktsun Unification Front discovered her shipwrecked and stranded on that moon, so many weeks ago. 'Mistress Talia, my lady,' he said with a grin a bow of his head. Talia rolled her eyes.

'Oh, come on, it's Tali to you,' she giggled, and Kalen stood up straight again, still grinning. 'I didn't know you were posted here now!'

'Yeah, I, uh…' Kalen shuffled awkwardly, and it was only then that Talia noticed his cast in a sling.

'Oh no…what happened to you?'

'Breaking the Siege of Ktsun Minoris, ma'am,' Kalen answered, and Talia thought _Tali_! 'My squad and a detachment of the Fighting 33rd were sent to root out a nest of bad guys, and…' he sighed, '…one of them had a vibroblade. Cut right through my armour, down to the bone. I may never be able to fire a weapon again. So…' he shrugged, '…I was transferred over to head up Lord Vickerus' private guard.'

'You were…? But I thought the guard was commanded by an officer…?'

Kalen grinned again. 'That's correct, ma'am. You're looking at Second Lieutenant Kalen Jaska of the Nicis Household Guard Regiment. Got my battlefield commission right after we broke the siege.'

Talia, both to her surprise and Kalen's, threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him into a crushing hug. 'I'm so glad to hear that!' she squealed with joy. 'Congratulations!'

'Err…thanks, ma'am…' he said awkwardly, and Talia released him and backed off a step, biting her bottom lip sheepishly.

'Sorry, I…' she rolled her eyes, '…I guess it's just nice seeing a friendly face. After all that's happened, you know.' Being honest with herself, Talia wasn't sure where her sudden burst of affection was coming from. _Why_ was she so happy to see Kalen, a guy she had barely met once before? Was it cabin fever from spending her days with no-one but her dry old master for company? Or was it…something else? _There is only passion_, a voice whispered in Talia's head, and she quickly put it out of mind.

'I get that,' Kalen replied coolly, and he shot her a warm smile. He looked down at his cast, and gestured at it with a nod. 'Well, you'll be seeing a lot more of _this_ friendly face around from now on. Hopefully you won't be _too_ lonely around here anymore.' He winked at her, and Talia smiled. 'Truth be told I could use a friendly face myself, _Tali_…this place sorta' gives me the creeps.'

Before Talia could reply, the doors to the boardroom swung upon and out flooded a parade of smartly-dressed senior officers in military uniform. Kalen automatically snapped to attention and fired off a crisp salute at them, and they responded in kind, acknowledging their subordinate – and then bowed their head in reverence at Talia, who shuffled awkwardly where she stood and gave a nervous laugh. She wasn't used to the kind of treatment she received being the protégé of a lord; _just_ a lord. Had the Ktsun Unification Front known that her master was _Sith_, she imagined the treatment would be even more grandiose. As the last of the admirals and generals filed out, Vickerus appeared in the doorway, tall and imposing silhouetted against the darkness of the boardroom beyond. Kalen bowed to him when he appeared, as did Talia. Even she could not get away with a breach of protocol in front of her master – the last time she had refused to bow to him, he'd locked her in the freezer in the kitchens for a day and a night. She had had to rely on the Dark Side of the Force to keep her warm enough to survive – a full night and day cycle, meditating on the passions of the Dark Side. She had been so exhausted by the end of it she'd slept for a further day when he finally emerged to release her.

She had not made the mistake of disrespecting her master again. At least not to his face.

'Lieutenant Jaska,' Vickerus croaked dryly, 'is there some reason you dally about in my private quarters?'

'No, my lord, I was just giving out orders to the men. I am about to make an inspection of the barracks now, sir.'

'Well, then, begone with you. What I desire with my apprentice need not concern you.'

'At once, my lord,' Kalen bowed again, and then turned to Talia, and bowed. 'My lady.' Then he disappeared down the corridor, Talia not daring to turn and look after him, but listening intently as his footsteps faded away. _My lady_, he had called her. They had just hit it off, and all…and now, _my lady_. She ground her teeth, trying to dispel her thoughts before Vickerus could sense them. She turned to him, and bowed deeply.

'What is thy bidding, my master?'

Reaching out with the Force, Talia could feel a sudden wave of disapproval surging from her master. She ground her teeth, and prepared to be admonished – and, having just met Kalen again, she realised how much she was _not_ in the mood for Vickerus right this instant.

'Would that you showed the same respect for _me_ as you do the young officer,' Vickerus spat, and Talia looked up to meet his withering glare. He looked her up and down with a gaze of pure malevolence – and then Talia realised that she was still in her loose-fitting clothes, and devoid of any footwear. She bowed her head in apology, and sighed.

'I am sorry, master, I was not expecting to be summoned today – I had intended to study the history of the Civil War, and…'

'Enough,' Vickerus silence her, and she braced for his punishing blow – she was by now used to the violence he unleashed upon her, either physically or through the Force, when she had displeased him. She winced and waiting for the impact – but it never came. Instead, she felt her master retreat back inside the boardroom. 'Come. I would discuss recent developments with you,' he called back over his shoulder.

Talia straightened up and, swallowing, entered after her master, who closed the doors behind her with the Force. The room inside was dark – much the same as the room aboard that naval warship she had first met Vickerus – save for the blue light that glowed from the holographic projection over the table in the middle of the room. The image showed the planets of the Ktsun System, as well as the disposition of naval forces belonging to the Ktsun Unification Front, the League of Independent Ktsun Worlds, and the so-called "peacekeeping" forces of the Galactic Republic. Talia noticed that, according to the map, Battlegroup Korriban remained in orbit around Ktsun Minoris, and had begun a campaign of orbital bombardment against the heavily-populated central world of Ktsun Majoris. No doubt, she thought, this was what her master had called her forth to discuss – the ongoing war effort against the League and their Republic supporters.

To her surprise, however, Vickerus switched off the projection, dousing the image from the room. Talia blinked rapidly, her eyes unaccustomed to the sudden darkness. Now, however, she looked at her properly master for the first time that day, and saw with shock that he had clipped his lightsaber to his belt. Ornately crafted and black it lay there like one would clip a holocommunicator or canteen. He had only _just_ been hosting the leaders of the Unification Front, though, she thought, had he made no effort to conceal his…

'My past as a Revanchist are well known to the leadership of the Ktsun Unification Front,' Vickerus said suddenly, causing Talia to jump. He had been searching her mind for her thoughts, and she felt violated by him. 'They have little love for the Republic or the Jedi; they do not hold it against me. Nor you,' he lowered his gaze at her, and Talia gulped. So, they knew…? That she was…?

_Did Kalen_…?

Talia held the stoic expression on her face, but she could sense a disturbance between her and her master. Things were changing, and she didn't know in what way.

'Have you been keeping apprised with recent developments on the war effort? Vickerus croaked. Talia swallowed, and shook her head.

'I've been…so busy with my training, master,' she said, eyes downcast. 'I'm sorry, I haven't paid attention to the news networks since…since the Siege of Ktsun Minoris,' she tilted her head to the side, and thought of Kalen again.

'No matter,' Vickerus waved the issue away with a skeletal hand, 'then this will be the first time you are hearing this. Nearly two solar weeks ago, the League threw another fleet against Battlegroup Korriban, laying siege to Ktsun Majoris. They were repelled; this is the fifth such attack by the League Battlegroup Korriban has had to fend off since the Fighting 33rd were victorious on Ktsun Minoris. Finally, it seems, the back of the League have been broken – they have called for a ceasefire, and one day ago the United Government officially voted to recognise it. With my blessing, of course.'

'Does that mean the war is over?' Talia asked, her eyes wide. She had not been paying attention to her master's war; she had little interest in it as it barely affected her studies. But even still, this was a development that nonetheless demanded attention.

'It means that the war is entering its most difficult stage,' her master answered, 'for what is diplomacy but the continuation of war by other means?' Talia thought, though it may have been a trick of the light, that she noticed just the faintest hint of a smile crack across the Pau'an's face. 'Which leads me to the task at hand;' he said, 'for your training is about to endure…complications.'

Talia squinted through the darkness, waiting patiently for her master to finally make his point.

'The Republic has proven untrustworthy to act as peacekeepers in this sector; they would rather pick a side in this conflict than mediate the dispute from afar. Though the Ktsun System is outside the Galactic Republic, the United Government has nonetheless seen fit to host a diplomatic mission on Coruscant to afford the system some representation in the Galactic Senate. They have filed dozens of complaints against the actions of the Republic peacekeeping forces in this sector – including, of course, the tragedy that befell your colony –' Talia blanched, but kept her cool in front of her master, '…and, finally, it would appear that someone has seen fit to listen. Diplomats that we are meant to view as _above_ the petty territorial ambitions of the Republic are en route to the Ktsun System and should arrive within the week…'

Innately, Talia knew what her master was talking about before he'd even finished speaking. '_The Jedi_,' she whispered. 'The Jedi are coming here.'

Vickerus nodded coldly. 'The Force grants you considerable insight, my young apprentice. You are correct; one Jedi Knight will travel to Ktsun Majoris, and there host talks with representatives of the League of Independent Ktsun Worlds, while the other will travel here.'

'_Here_?' Talia asked, her heart sinking. 'What good could that possibly accomplish…?'

'In my…_capacity_ as financier of the Ktsun Unification Front, I have convinced the United Government to cede diplomatic proxy to me for the duration of the ceasefire. Instead of the Jedi dealing with them directly, they will instead deal with me. It will afford us a chance to mould proceedings to suit our ambitions.' Talia nodded her head, but privately she had her reservations. Her master's ambitions were…lacklustre in scope, at best. She had begun to realise this since she began to study the history of the Revanchists for herself.

Revan and Malak did not concern themselves with uniting a _single_ star system under one government; they set out to bring the _entire galaxy_ to heel. That was the way of the Sith; power, passion, immortality. She did not share in her master's vision of a united Ktsun System. She had no stake in this section of the galaxy; one planet, to her, was as good as any now that Jana was gone and she had no hope of ever returning home to Nar Shadaa. Even still, for as long as she was Vickerus' apprentice she at least had to _pretend_ to share his objectives; she would not fall into the trap previous incarnations of the Sith had.

Betrayal and infighting would _not_ be her legacy. She swore it to herself.

'As a result of these developments,' Vickerus continued, seemingly not sensing her thoughts, 'great care must be taken in how you approach your studies from now on. The Jedi will not believe a Revanchist yet lives; and so our connection to the Force must be hidden from them at all times. Likewise, your studies must be done away from the manor, at one of my other residences around the planet.'

'And if they ask as to the object of our relationship, master…?'

'You are my adoptive heir,' Vickerus answered with a thin smile. 'I am educating you to follow me as Lady of Nicis upon my death, and you are a loyal and studious understudy.' Talia nodded, it made sense and allowed her a great deal of freedom in how she pursued her true studies in the ways of the Dark Side. 'Now. As for your training.' Vickerus looked at her, and Talia sensed a hint of malice (there was that word again, she thought; _malice_) in his mind. 'Meet me in the courtyard in half an hour. Bring your electroblade.'

Talia fought to suppress a groan. She was still stiff and sore from yesterday's training session; she didn't want another excuse for her master to beat her unconscious and admonish her upon her awakening. Gritting her teeth, she bowed deeply. 'As you wish, master,' she said, and then swept out of the room and made to return to her bedroom.

She stripped her baggy clothes from her, and stood naked in front of the mirror, looking at the purple-and-yellow bruises over her shoulders and belly from previous sparring sessions with her master. She would have given anything to back out, to beg him not to put her through another beating…but she was terrified of what he would do to her if she even tried to refuse a sparring session. The Sith did not allow failed acolytes to simply leave their order; that much was obvious. The entire point of Sith training was that an apprentice either grew to be immensely powerful, or died trying. Talia groaned, and stepped into her en-suite bathroom, engaging the hydroshower and stepping under it.

As the piping hot water ran down her slim body, she gritted her teeth and tried to focus her energies on the fight to come. It seemed so natural to her – to give in to her anger and hatred during a fight and let it strengthen her, let it flow through her and empower her. And yet, she couldn't reconcile that pure emotion with how she still had to consciously consider every move of her blade and every step and movement she took. Talia slapped at the tiled wall of the shower in agony, feeling the Dark Side build in her. It was useless, she thought, useless. Vickerus was going to beat her again, and then punish her. She shivered, despite the steam rising up from the floor of the shower. She didn't want it, not again, no more pain. She felt something well up inside her, and she found she suddenly had to swallow back tears.

_No, Talia_! She admonished herself. This was _not_ the way of the Sith. The Sith did not give in to fear; they became the embodiment of it. The Sith Order was fear made manifest; _that is why it was perfect_. The Sith of Revan's day were the fears of an entire galaxy; _that_ is what she had to focus on. Not what would happen to her if she failed. Not that.

Talia groaned, and switched off the shower, getting out and drying herself before stepping back into the cool air of her bedroom. She was surprised to see that somebody had been inside it while she showered; draped over her kingsize bed was a large black cloak, complete with a brand new electroblade. Talia strode over to it and picked it up, studying it carefully. She could not picture how it would look without wearing it, so she quickly dressed and then through it on, even over her wet hair, pulling up the deep hood as far as it would stretch. Then she turned to look at herself in the mirror.

The cloak was long, sweeping to the floor with only inches to spare off the ground. It was impractical, she realised; not meant to be worn during combat, but as a cloak to wear over her combat gear and keep her warm, it was impeccable. The sleeves were large, giving her room to fold her arms within the cosy folds of the robe, and the hood was so deep that the top half of her face was entirely obscured by it. Talia grinned, despite her foreboding. She _looked amazing_. A true spectre; black as the void of space, concealed from all prying eyes by the deep hood. She looked _awesome_, in the true meaning of the word; an awe-inspiring sight. She looked like something to be fear.

_She looked like an apprentice of the Sith_.

Talia, smiling, picked up her electroblade, and twirled it expertly as she stepped out of the bedroom. There was no sign of the servant or droid who had dropped off the cloak, and so no sign of whom she should thank, but she nearly knocked over Lance Corporal Simit as she emerged from her room. He had been about to knock on her door and request an audience – seeing her now, in all her malevolent finery, he backed away, bowing his head in terror.

'Speak, Simit,' Talia said, and was shocked by the booming power in her voice. Did the black cloak give her more confidence, because of how her face was concealed? Or…_and some part of her suspected this now_…was it laced with Sith magic? She did not know.

'M-my lady Talia…' he stammered, '…repairs and outfitting of the _Bastion Angel_ have been completed as per your specifications. Your hyperdrive system has been replaced entirely; it seems to have been jury-rigged illegally with spare parts. However, in place of what had previously been a Class-4 rating, we've installed a Class-3 hyperdrive in your freighter. To compensate for the heavier weight of the engine, we've had to remove some of the luxury amenities from the cabin area but…' he gulped, '…given your undertakings we doubted you would mind that.' He bowed his head again, and Talia could see him trembling with fear. _Good_, she thought, feeling a rush of energy snake through her veins, _your fear gives me strength_.

'You are to be commended, Lance Corporal,' she said aloud to the chief of engineering. 'I shall inspect her personally when I have a chance.' She took a step forwards, but Simit's stammering caused her to pause in her tracks, and turn to look at him. 'Yes?'

'W-well, m-m-m'lady, it's just o-one…one last detail the men w-would ask of you…'

'Get to the point.'

'Y-yes, of…o-of course m'lady…' Simit swallowed, and then did his best to stand up straight. 'Having repainted and largely refitted the entire ship, some thought it would be appropriate that she be rebranded, as well. She is, for all intents and purposes, a brand new starship, after all.' He hesitated. 'Naturally, we…we thought the honour of renaming her should be yours.'

Talia raised an eyebrow at the cowering mechanic. The _Bastion Angel_ had been the _Bastion Angel_ from before she was even born; her father's ship, then Jett's, and now hers. She had never imagined renaming her; it had never, ever come on the entire time she had owned her. Now, however…Talia thought about it for a second. But only a second.

Then a slow smile spread across her lips.

'Why, yes, Lance Corporal, you have my permission to rebrand my starship.

'She is now _Darth Malak's Revenge.'_


End file.
